Marked for Death
by Slytherite
Summary: When the aristocracy is corrupt, who can you trust? Uh...we'll get back to you on that. A tale of murder, mayhem, mania, malevolence, and other sundry Bad Things. Darkfic warning. Snarky narrator warning. Various pairings. Insert generic "R&R" here.
1. Chapter 1: Dead, Bloody Midnight

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Unless, that is, we include the dead Muggles, and one of THOSE was played by a very anachronistic Ron, in a wig and lipstick, trying to look sufficiently dead. We fired him after three takes for making faces at the camera.  
A/N: This is an updated rewrite of the original Chapter One, which was rather poorly written. While the original still exists on Slytherite's computer, she tries not to look at it, think about it, or acknowledge its existence.  
FURTHER A/N: This is an updated rewrite of the original updated rewrite. The person responsible for rewriting the original rewrite has been sacked on the grounds that she, to her utmost horror, left notes on the revision process in the middle of a perfectly good paragraph.**

**Warnings: This story contains many rather depressing things. For instance, it contains Lucius Malfoy. A depressing thing if ever I saw one. It also contains character death, Death Eaters, mild-to-moderate blood, frequent swearing, Dark magic, sexual innuendo, slash, strongly implied incest, plot, snide remarks, and a rather casual attitude towards many unnerving things. It also contains twice your daily requirement of Vitamin A.**

---

It's like an arithmetic problem. Four plus four. The sort of thing they teach in the first grade. Of course, they're thinking of moving it to the fifth grade for all of you, the lost generation, you poor students whose brains have been rotted by television. Even you could probably tell me that four plus four equals eight.

They don't teach everything in schools.

Sometimes, for instance, on the night that I'm going to tell you about, four plus four equals four.

There had been four people in the house at first. Then there were, briefly, eight. Now there are four again.

Unless you count corpses. Corpses are very important.

The corpses are the main problem with our cozy circumstances, actually. Blood can be siphoned off the walls and the floor until you'd never suspect that there might have been a murder. Probably the entire neighborhood heard them: there was screaming and yelling and, at one point, even a gunshot. But who cared enough to investigate? _Maybe those sods next door are watching a movie_. There are a million reasons why the neighbors won't get involved, or even think about getting involved, until it's far, far too late.

Stop the narrative. We need to get something straight.

You should know, boys and girls, that I'm not telling you a nice story. The four people in the kitchen are a smug snake who cares not a whit for your sick children and your tales of woe, all hell personified in a pretty face, the poster boy for violent insanity, and Jonathan Avery, a man so vile that even the other Death Eaters call him a slimy bastard. The four people scattered around the house, some of them in multiple rooms, don't matter. Don't pay attention to them. They used to be people, but now they're corpses, and their only relevance is as set-pieces for the real action.

In this story I'm telling you, there are bastards and there are corpses. There are no bunnies, no cheery flowers, or whatever you probably haven't been expecting. I can dress it up in all the pretty words you like, but I'll get it out of the way now. Don't try to like these people. Don't expect them to have any shreds of heroism about them. They have none. (Bellatrix, in particular, would be quite offended by your assumptions.)

They're Death Eaters. You know as well as I do exactly what that means about their morality, beliefs, and general _modus operandi_.

They kill people. They're going to kill more people. And they killed the four in the house. I don't think I need to tell you how. Your fertile imaginations can conjure up far more, dear readers, than I could ever tell you in words. All you need to know is that the victims are dead _now_.

"She struggled," Avery gripes. He's rubbing a bruise on his arm. His sleeve is rolled up to reveal a nice collection of them. Never mind that he was fighting a three-year-old child. That tells you more about Avery than it does about poor Suzy, may she rest in peace and not too many pieces. "The girl struggled. What was I supposed to do?"

The other three ignore him. It would look suspicious if Avery's body turned up with the others, and they want to resist the urge to kill him. They've felt that urge many, many times before, not least tonight. But they have other things to do now, anyway.

Lucius is tidying up the place a bit. Only a fool would try. Quite apart from the blood, the house is almost unrecognizable as the pretty piece of suburbia it was before the Dark wizards arrived and shot the place all to hell. It's amazing how much damage a misaimed Avada Kedavra can do. He isn't trying to hide their presence; even Lucius Malfoy can't do the impossible. The Death Eaters always leave their sign, and if a giant glowing Dark Mark doesn't scream "Wizards did this," nothing does. There's no need to hide that. They leave it there for a _reason_.  
All the evidence of the struggle is more or less still there. He's a tidy enough person, true, but all that means is that he appreciates living in a neat environment: he's too aristocratic and well-bred to do his own housework, and he's even less likely to do some Muggle's housework for him (especially when Lucius's own dear sister-in-law made damn sure that that Muggle is never going to appreciate it). But he wants something to do, something that might distract him for only a few minutes, before he has to go home and wash off the blood before his loving wife sees it.

There aren't any corpses in the kitchen, either. The woman ran through here once, thinking, perhaps, that she could escape. However, even if Rodolphus isn't a fast runner, when he catches you he makes very sure that you won't get away from him again. I'll spare you the details. You don't need to know. Lucius himself wishes he didn't know. There was no plan, or no plan that didn't last past the confusion of the first charge, and Lucius had been coming down the stairs, right in the middle of what he had thought was a momentary break in the confused slaughter, and he had seen it all.

He dabs a few drops of blood (is it blood? There are broken jars everywhere: it might be jam) off of the counter with a paper towel. A Muggle implement. _Ergo_, not something he ever wants to use again. But doesn't it suffice?

Rodolphus, the poor sod, isn't doing anything nearly so useful. Well, maybe it's useful for him. Maybe even the crazed killers need some way to block the blood and screams and fresh memories out of their minds. Rodolphus has a few of those ever-reliable methods. Right now it's alcohol. He assumes that he's drinking alcohol, anyway; it's a bit dark in the kitchen and he's banking on the Muggles having been sensible sorts who didn't store drain cleaner in those rather tempting old bottles. Most of the bottles were broken at some point, and he's already halfway through the ones that aren't. Even if he's in for a painful death, the adrenaline is wearing off and he's tired enough that, just maybe, he doesn't care.

And he's already in pain. Lots of pain. He was sadistic, as usual: he played cat-and-mouse with the poor woman for a while before he killed her. Moreover, Rodolphus isn't too bright. He doesn't, of course, know anything about gun control laws, but he's used to Muggles being unarmed. This Muggle had, legally or not, a gun, and he'd given her just enough time to run and grab it before he closed in on her again.

It's, sadly, not a lethal wound. Actually, it didn't hit anything remotely important. There are a hundred ways to kill with a gun, and Mrs. Smith had learned a few of them from the movies. However, and this is important, she'd overlooked the sad fact that what you see in the movies just doesn't work. Or it doesn't work on a wizard, anyway.

Rodolphus isn't easy to kill. He's the big strong bugger without any brains or ideas or beliefs of his own; there's one in every group. He's been hurt before, and his sole concern was that his brother didn't find out where he'd been. These days, he comes home splattered with someone else's blood almost every night. Someone, and I'm not naming any names but hell, I'll tell you that it was Avery, started a nasty rumor a few months ago about Rodolphus's particular...proclivities. You know what I mean, don't you? Of course.

Who knows if it's true?

Bellatrix probably knows. Hell, they've said the same thing about her. Her particular brand of sadism, vicious and mocking and utterly depraved, playing people like pianos as she ushers them into death, tends to invite such comparisons. Murder, dear readers, is almost a sexual act for her. The rumors, in another month or two, will spread to imply that she and Rodolphus, after they cut short another mortal coil, don't bother to wash off the blood before they go to bed. (These are distinct, please understand, from the rumors that she prefers the Dark Lord's bed.) There are a lot of sick motivations behind these nasty, mean-spirited rumors. Bellatrix is a woman, and an attractive one at that. Sexism would be an easy answer. Certainly the Wizarding world, or at least the part of the Wizarding world that Bellatrix frequents, the upper-class circle that knows her by reputation, is a reactionary, traditionalist, set-in-their-ways kind of place. But that's an academic answer, not the answer anyone who's seen Bellatrix kill might stammer to the police. That terrified, half-hysterical answer is probably truer.

Sadism was invented, it seems, by Bellatrix Lestrange. (That's her husband's surname—sexism again.) There's no way to explain the extent of her cruelty on paper. It would be tasteless, and it would be utterly pointless. You can't transcribe a deranged laugh, a twisted grin, without losing everything that makes them so nightmarish in the first place.

Not, of course, that I'm implying that anyone who's been on the wrong side of that smile, that laugh, ever survives to have nightmares.

The other three are all wondering if she even notices she's been stabbed. Somehow one of the knives in the kitchen found its way into Mr. Smith's hand during the melee. Shortly thereafter, it found its way into Bellatrix. Her wrist is bleeding. It's only a _small_ geyser of blood, though; of all the vulnerable things in a woman's wrist that Mr. Smith could have hit, he missed every single one of them. Unfortunately for him, he didn't get a chance at another strike. It's unfortunate for the rest of the Wizarding world, too.

And then there's Avery.

"It hurts," he says disgustedly, as if the whole world is to blame for his horrendous misfortune. "Look what she did to me. It _hurts_."

Avery is a whiner. He's nothing more, nothing less. There's no complexity to his character. He doesn't need any. He can do one thing, and he does it perfectly: Avery complains.

The _really_ sad thing is that this is his first murder. He's the same age as Rodolphus and Bellatrix, but while they've got senseless slaughter down to a science, and then refined it into an art, he's still a complete amateur. A large portion of the chaos and destruction tonight is attributable to him and his blundering, panicky incompetence. He couldn't even perform a proper Killing Curse, strong enough to kill a toddler; he dropped the girl and tried to run, but Bellatrix stopped him. She stopped him _violently_. You wondered about his bruises, didn't you?

In the twisted world they live in, the first killing is an event. A marker that a boy (or a girl, I suppose, though society might not agree) is growing up. It's a mark of Avery's shallowness that he doesn't even appreciate that. He just wants to go home, finish that letter he was writing to his girlfriend, and get a nice eight (hell, I'll be realistic—a nice ten) hours of sleep.

If only the Death Eaters had standards, better standards than shaky, unreliable pure blood, Avery would have failed them.

There always has to be one character that the readers hate.

They're existing in their own separate worlds right now. Ignoring one another. If they could have chosen who they'd slaughter innocents alongside, they wouldn't have chosen each other.

Bellatrix is getting bored. There's only so long that someone like her can be reasonably expected to go without stimulation, and now her main sources of entertainment are dead. _Rat-ta-tat-_tat goes her wand on the kitchen table: a cheery little rhythm. _Rat-tat-ta-tat-whack-whack-whack_. The others turn to look at her. _Only Bellatrix_, they think in their varying mental vocabularies (Rodolphus manages to slot "bitch" into it somewhere) _would do something like that_. They're probably wrong. Plenty of people would do the same thing in those circumstances. If they were in those circumstances. No sane person would want to be in those circumstances, anyway.

The noise pulls Lucius out of his reverie. He's been scrubbing the same spot on the counter for several minutes now, and it's a tribute to the grand, important thoughts he's been thinking that he hasn't noticed.

Sadly, they're not such grand thoughts. They only seem grand to him, and if they'd occurred to him in the middle of the day, while he was taking a nice walk around the grounds of Malfoy Manor, he'd have scoffed at them. He puts one of them into words anyway.

"You do realize, don't you, that I have things to do tomorrow?"

Rodolphus's vacant brown eyes widen a bit. He's taken off his mask for the express purpose of drowning his conscience in hard liquor, and Lucius can see that his normally ruddy face is going a bit pale from blood loss. Probably he's drunk enough to replace the volume of lost blood with the champagne that Mr. Smith planned on giving his wife for their fifteenth anniversary. (It might be relevant to note here that Rodolphus failed any class he ever took, and there's no way in hell that he understands basic biology. Particularly while intoxicated.)

"Crap," he mumbles. The alcohol hasn't had time to take much effect, so his deep voice is still perfectly understandable. I can't say he's coherent, though. He never really is. "Bella?"

Bellatrix gives them both a disgustingly pitying look.

"Put your mask back on, Rodolphus, if you aren't too drunk—and you are, aren't you? Oh, yes. We're leaving."

Avery is gone in ten seconds flat, Disapparating directly out of the kitchen. No one really misses him. They have other things to do now, and Avery is not part of the plans.

The other two gentlemen follow Bellatrix out of the house. She's cocky, and she doesn't put much faith in the abilities of Muggles to notice or remember the hooded figures on their recently murdered neighbors' front lawn, and she doesn't consciously consider it anyway, so they go out the front door. Rodolphus nearly trips on the body of the family dog on the way out. Lucius, right behind him, shudders and makes a pronounced effort to avoid it. It's dark, and his foot comes down right on the dog's back. He'll sacrifice another precious half hour of his sleep tonight, lying in the bath and scrubbing until he feels clean enough to risk sleeping without worrying about arrest or vengeful ghosts or even that Narcissa will sense his filthiness and be appalled.

The night sky is beautiful. Too beautiful. Wide-open, with the stars distributed in clumps like the sprinkles on a cupcake. The part they're standing under seems to have the most.

Bellatrix raises her wand, smiling, and her breathing is quick and excited.

"MORSMORDRE!" she screams, far louder than she, strictly speaking, had to.

The skull and snake emblem of the Death Eaters and all that they stand for is burning in the sky again.

I'm sorry.

The killers vanish into the darkness within five feet of the house, and by the time the police get there, which isn't until the morning anyway, it's too late for justice.

---

**J.K. Rowling is going to flay me alive for writing this.**

**I'd threaten you with something comical to get you to leave a review, but frankly I think you need a dose of something nice.**

**So I'll threaten you POLITELY. Good fellows, if you don't wish to review, that is entirely your business.**

**It will, however, result in death by maniacal cupcake.**

**Just a friendly warning.**


	2. Chapter 2: That's All I Know About It

**Chapter Two: That's All I Know About It**

**Disclaimer: I owned Harry Potter until very recently. Unfortunately, I lost it at poker to a cheating lowlife named J.K. Rowling.**

**A/N: To all of you adoring fans (I feel sure I must have some, right?), I have only one thing to say.**

**REVIEW DAMMIT!**

**Thank you.**

**Warnings: This chapter contains playful spousal abuse, moderate blood, occasional swearing, sexual innuendo, a bad alibi, further narratorial obnoxiousness (narrator's opinions are not my own, blah blah blah), an OC, lawyer jokes, and altogether too much Bellatrix.**

---

Wizards, they say, are tougher than Muggles. Which proves only, I guess, that whoever "they" are, "they" have never read any Wizarding obituaries. One pathetic story after another.

A gunshot at close range is _more_ than enough to kill, dear readers. On the whole, Rodolphus Lestrange survived that night only because some poor Muggle is still fated for a really nasty death. When he and his dear demented wife got home, he should have gone straight to St. Mungo's. But he's an idiot. A proud idiot. The worst kind.

Neither one of them slept much last night. That in itself was hardly unusual, you understand. It always takes Bellatrix a few hours to calm down after a rousing game of slaughter-the-Muggles. As for Rodolphus, he fell asleep right away, but a few minutes later the pain was making itself known, he couldn't sleep, and he had to settle for his favorite anesthetic.

It surprised him a little that a whole bottle of firewhisky didn't help. Probably most of his blood alcohol was bleeding out the neat little hole in his chest. He was too drunk to notice, in any case, and it was Bellatrix who, disgusted, bandaged the wound sometime around two AM. If her husband, not to mention her meat shield, bled to death from a wound he couldn't have acquired legally, she might be in for some very nasty questions.

They're both in for some nasty questions now, anyway, now that the pain's just gotten too damn bad to ignore. Rabastan, who is after all the sort to worry about premature death from extending one's torture hobby to one's own body, has put his foot down about the alcohol. This was at almost the same time that Bellatrix had made up her mind that, given a glass or two of something adult, she would deal with the wound on her own.

Neither of them likes hospitals.

Bellatrix just spent ten minutes arguing with the desk clerk about something stupid, out of pure nervousness. Her wrist hurts like hell, understand. She's not inclined toward civility at the best of times, and her temper isn't improved by the feeling that any minute she'll collapse from blood loss. She's fantasizing about killing Rabastan, who buggered off to spend the day window-shopping in Knockturn Alley and left her and Rodolphus to navigate the hospital bureaucracy on their own. The desk clerk is skinny and pale, and he looks enough like Rabastan, or maybe Avery (why, she wonders, do all cowards look alike?), that he fits right into her fantasies. Some of the scenes from last night are playing out again in her mind, but with a different supporting cast.

Her wrist wound makes her feel almost vulnerable. Dependent on the good will of the Healers, hoping that they won't screw up the potion they give her. "Wouldn't it be just like them," she thinks, hoping that the funny pumping feeling is normal or at least not immediately fatal, "to give me some poor benighted apprentice Healer?"

She hates being dependent. She hates stupid babbling patronizing Healers who make her feel like a child. In her mind (which, you should know, isn't the sanest) there's no other kind.

She gives the desk boy a nasty, sneering smile, the best she can summon up in her drained state, and hisses "Why don't you get a job training Dementors for Azkaban?" It's a pathetic farewell, not that she'd admit to it even in her own head, but I'll ask you to excuse her: she's a bit preoccupied right now, ha ha, what with not bleeding to death and everything.

She's worried, too, that Rodolphus won't remember their alibi. Bellatrix is fully aware of her husband's deficiencies. The things, unimportant things like morals or ideals or a sense of self, that were never there behind his dead eyes. Half the time, and that includes right about now, Bellatrix is mentally screaming "Think, moron!".

She turns to glare at him. He's been blankly scanning the same board above the front desk for ten minutes, long enough for him to have memorized it, and she's reasonably sure that he hasn't taken in a word of it. His lips are slightly parted, as they are whenever he tries to think. There's a dark spot on the chest of his scarlet robes, which are just tight enough to show off the bandages that, for all their bulk, have started to leak.

Bellatrix grabs his wrist and yanks him off to the side. She doesn't bother trying to get his attention. She _knows_ how successful she'll be.

The lobby of St. Mungo's is always a bit crowded. Nobody takes the time to notice another couple conversing privately, with their voices down. If it was a happy story, a just and fair world, some innocent bystander would somehow discern that they weren't talking about anything too wholesome, and they'd be arrested and thrown in prison. Actually, make that executed, because even though the Wizarding world doesn't do some things any more, I for one would like to see Bellatrix on the gallows.

But it's not going to happen, is it? I just tell this story and I can't change a damn thing. They're going to get away scot-free, dear readers, at least for the minute. And there's no reason why they should. Listen to their pathetic alibi...

"Remember," Bellatrix orders him, under her breath, "it was an argument."

Rodolphus nods.

"An argument."

"And," she adds, smirking, "it was your fault."

Rodolphus accepts this unquestioningly. In fact, he improves it.

"You caught me" (censored for YOUR protection, dear readers, not that people who're reading this story need it) "the broom-repair girl."

This strikes Bellatrix as funny. The desk boy, in the middle of sending the poor Healer who's going to have to examine our, for lack of a better term, heroes, a memo, looks up. Bellatrix is _incapable_, you understand, of laughing quietly. Just another reason to hate her.

"No," she snickers, "the broom-repair boy!"

Rodolphus grins, shaking his head so his uneven dark brown hair hides his eyes.

"My brother."

Bellatrix screams with laughter. Rodolphus stomps on her foot, and she shoves him playfully. Not enough people give them disapproving looks. It'd be nice if the whole lobby had turned on them and glared as one. Then even someone as dense as Rodolphus might have gotten the point.

"Look at them," Bellatrix hisses in his ear. "They hate you already."

"Nah," says Rodolphus, still grinning, for a moment distracted from the pain, "they hate you. I'm just an accessory."

"The Muggles are coming to get you," she says in that singsongy way that makes you want to rip her throat out.

"They already tried to get me," he says, rubbing his wound with a strangely contented look on his broad, handsome face. "That's why we're here."

"The Healer's going to _killlllll_ you," she insists, unwilling to let the idea go. Her voice has risen in pitch, and she drags out the word 'kill' like a whiny brat.

He doesn't take the bait.

"Healers don't do that, Bella."

"The firing squad already tried to get you," Bellatrix whispers. Rodolphus looks unnerved despite himself. "You were supposed to die last night. You _were_. You're already dead. The Healer's going to see that, and she's going to scream and faint and tell me to take you away, somewhere where the wild birds will appreciate a nice, tender, juicy, fresh piece of meat, and she's going to tell me to kill you."

"Hello," says the Healer from behind them. Bellatrix jumps. Lost in her husband's personal hell again.

The Healer is an old man, not the fresh-faced young maiden Bellatrix expected. She expects a lot of things. The woman doesn't get out of her own head much. It's half-symptom, half-cause of her craziness. And she has certain stereotypes in her head about how the world is and should be.

She doesn't trust Healers. The image she holds of them in her mind is hardly complimentary; hell, half of it's taken from blood-traitor Andromeda, half from pretty, stupid Narcissa. They're all women, she thinks, naive young women with too much intelligence and too little reason to use it for Wizardkind, with university degrees on their walls and no doubt some idiotic, idealized conception of Muggle medicine as the cure for all ills. Every time she's thought of the Healer who'll be examining her, that's the image that's come to mind--a smiling woman with bright, sparkling eyes, in a white Muggle coat and a knife in her hand, just relishing the thought of digging into the flesh and bone of her betters.

But this Healer is different. He's an old man, which is a strike against him as far as Bellatrix is concerned, but then everything else would be, too. He's decidedly odd-looking, too, in a stereotyped way, short and stout with a few erratic puffs of ragged white hair around the sides of his skull and a pair of outdated spectacles slipping off the end of his strawberry nose. His ugliness doesn't escape Bellatrix's notice: his image has already burned itself into her brain, and when she'll describe him, disparagingly, to Narcissa a week from now, she'll dissolve into helpless laughter twice. Once when she describes what he looked like, and once when she describes something that will happen very soon, something that you don't need to know yet but that you can probably guess.

Rodolphus barely notices his face. He's more interested in the wand in the man's pocket. Just under the name tag ('Healer Gulliver Beckett") pinned to his robes is a pocket, and there are three things sticking out of it. A wand, a quill, and--oh, crap--a vial of some sticky, bubbling substance that he can just imagine being dribbled into a wound that, he is convinced, would have gotten better on its own if Rabastan hadn't talked him into coming here.

He squeezes her hand for reassurance (as if big, strong, badass Rodolphus Lestrange needs reassurance) as they follow the Healer out of the lobby. The little man is chattering busily as he walks, spewing rapid-fire medical terms and questions that Rodolphus has no chance of following. He thinks Healer Beckett said something about nerve damage, and the unlikelihood of restoring with magic a day-old stab wound, and here he misses something but the next thing that he catches sounds distinctly like good Healer Beckett is planning to screw around with his private parts, whatever that has to do with anything. As if he needed another reason to distrust the old bugger.

For his age, Beckett walks fast. Even young, healthy Bellatrix is having to walk at an uncomfortably brisk pace to keep up with him, and habitual smoker (cigarettes _kill_, boys and girls, as I'm sure Beckett would inform you at great length) Rodolphus is several feet behind them at all times. He almost catches up when they reach the staircase, though, and he overhears something that makes him wonder what the hell Bellatrix is thinking.

"You say," she says coldly, in the rather condescending voice she always uses with legitimate authority, "that we should have come in immediately, then?"

"Yes," says Beckett impatiently, as if talking to a slow child or perhaps Rodolphus, "if the knife had gone in an inch to the right, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Very dangerous, wrist wounds. Thankfully, it's a puncture wound, and a small one, but as I say, you really did wait too long, madame" (Rodolphus holds his breath waiting for the outburst, but Bellatrix's only reaction is a smirk that her _dear_, long-suffering husband doesn't see anyway) "and a simple spell won't do the job anymore. I may well have to let this heal on its own--"

"Don't worry," says Bellatrix, smirking even more, "I won't press charges." They're walking along a narrow hallway now, lined with doors on either side; every time they pass an open door, Bellatrix the voyeur takes a quick peek inside.

Beckett's office, or perhaps just the room where he's chosen to examine them, has the air of a broom closet. It's windowless, with peeling wallpaper, and lit by a single candle hanging forlornly from the ceiling. There's no furniture save a shelf covered in obscure medical instruments against the wall and one chair, right in the middle of the cramped, godforsaken space, and even then the chair looks like it'll collapse under the weight of the next person to sit on it. Budget cuts again, I'm afraid.

"Sit," says Beckett vaguely, waving to the chair. Mr. and Mrs. Lestrange look at each other, then back at the single chair.

"He's old," Bellatrix hisses, "he's probably senile." She takes the chair before Rodolphus can protest, as if a doormat like him would have complained. He walks over and stands behind her, looming over her like a bodyguard, silently daring Beckett to touch the woman who can kill him three different ways before he takes a step toward her.

Beckett has his back to them, fiddling with some irrelevant chart necessary only to the bureaucrats who run the hospital. He'd be an easy target if Bellatrix was so inclined.

Her hand feels like it's about to drop off. She doesn't even think of going for her wand.

Finally, Healer Beckett turns around and glares at her. His spectacles are nearly off his nose, and she laughs. He pushes them up again, unsmiling.

"How did you sustain your injury, madame?"

She looks back at him, unfazed.

"Rodolphus," is all she says.

Beckett lifts his head to glare at Rodolphus instead. Rodolphus gives him a blank look before remembering his role as the contrite wife-beater and nodding.

"I stabbed her," he mutters, showing no emotion. He really wants a cigarette, a drink, and a decent meal right about now. They didn't go over a script beforehand, and he's not sure what he should be saying, uncomfortably aware that both Beckett and Bellatrix will skewer him alive if he gets it wrong.

He's not sure which one to be more intimidated by.

Beckett nods slightly. Heartened, Rodolphus continues with his (pathetic) story.

"She caught me fu--_in bed with_ the broom-repair girl. It got out of control. I'm sorry."

Bellatrix doesn't bother to hide rolling her eyes.

"And you had a knife," she elaborates, "in the dresser drawer."

"In case you came in," he agrees. The whole thing is like a poorly acted high-school theater production. I'm sure you've seen one. Imagine Romeo saying tonelessly that he loves Juliet, Juliet prodding him to remember the lines that he's forgotten, and the Nurse coming in at the wrong moment. It's funny. But now it's serious.

If they screw up, they go to Azkaban. Beckett's already suspicious. Rodolphus can't act and Bellatrix isn't trying. What sort of deus ex machina, I wonder, is going to save them this time? Because there's always going to be a deus ex machina.

I hate this story.

"You _intentionally_ stabbed your wife? It was premeditated?" asks Beckett, like a judge, which in a sense he is. He doesn't buy a word of it; you can see it in the suspicious obsidian look in his dark eyes and the tightness around his lips.

"No," says Rodolphus, missing the point but playing his role as an idiot _spectacularly_, "I didn't plan it, because I didn't know she was going to come in."

"But you'd considered the possibility that she might?"

"You've had lawyer's training?" Bellatrix sneers. "Did Mummy decide that it wasn't _respectable_ enough?"

Rodolphus kicks her. Beckett adjusts his glasses again, giving her a grimmer look yet. It doesn't work. "He looks like an angry penguin," she thinks, and it gives her a fit of giggles that takes disgustingly long to subside. He waits for her to stop before speaking.

"No, madame, I don't know the law. I don't know if I can report this--"

Two sharp intakes of breath.

"You can't," Bellatrix snaps. "I won't press charges against him."

"I made a mistake," Rodolphus says weakly. He really is scared now. He's not an educated man (there are no Wizarding primary schools and the end result is that many aristocrats can barely add) and he doesn't know a legal principle from a bar of soap. He does know, however, that if he goes into court, to put it in the vulgar terms he himself would use, he is screwed. They'll uncover last night. The Dark Lord's supremacy will be challenged. Progress backwards into the Middle Ages will be halted. Oh, and Rodolphus might go to Azkaban. "We've made up. We're over it. She shot me," he adds.

Beckett turns his scalpel eyes on Rodolphus now. Don't assume I'm merely being poetic. They are scalpel eyes. Sharp, bright, and focused enough to kill. Rodolphus shivers slightly.

"When I am finished examining your wife, Mr. Lestrange," Beckett says sharply, "I will examine your injury. For now, please remain silent and unmoving."

"Shut up, Roddy," Bellatrix scolds mockingly.

Beckett doesn't laugh.

"Please give me your wrist, madame."

She shoves her wrist into his face, hard enough to cause considerable pain and inconvenience. He _still_ doesn't laugh. My God, the man has no sense of humor. Instead, he plucks ineffectually at her skin, hard enough to make her gasp in pain. Rodolphus glares at him. He ignores it, wordlessly poking the gash with his wand. A drop of blood runs from the deepest part of the wound.

He smiles in satisfaction. Bellatrix is watching, her face motionless, a muscle twitching in her temple. The fingernails of her left hand are bending from the force with which she's clenching the side of the chair.

"He shouldn't be _allowed_..." she thinks, mentally screaming but unwilling to show even the slightest hint of pain. "..._sadistic_..." Which only proves her limited experience of human nature. In fact, Healer Beckett is a good, if unpleasant, man doing a necessary job. They say that you project onto others your own worst qualities...

She was thoroughly unpleasant to him, though. They also say that if you want anesthetic, you should be damn nice to the person giving it to you.

"Well," he says finally, releasing her wrist, "I believe that this can be magically healed. It isn't nearly fresh enough to heal it painlessly, unfortunately, but if you would prefer anesthetic..."

"If you were more competent," she mutters, "I wouldn't need it."

Some people just don't learn.

She doesn't get the anesthetic. Rodolphus watches with bated breath. One tap of the wand, two, and then it's over. She doesn't even shriek as her blood does something rather disgusting before soaking back into her skin and vanishing.

"Nothing she won't endure for the Dark Lord," he thinks. As a matter of fact, the sick little puppy is impressed.

When Beckett turns to him instead, he tries to remain silent. He really does. It's just too much for him. Taking off his robes so Beckett can get to his chest is bad enough. The disparaging comments about his physical condition (Bellatrix volunteers that he's only twenty-five, which is the first time today that he's wanted to kill her) are bad enough. He wants a cigarette and a drink, and he can't have either, which is even worse.

He loses it when Bellatrix sticks her finger in the neat little puncture in his chest. It isn't looking so neat with the bandages off, and he's wondering "How the hell did I have that thing in my chest and not notice it?" He has rather well-developed chest muscles, especially, and the tear stands out.

And then she says, and he could swear that there's an evil gleam in her eyes, "Oh, _look_, I could get my _finger_ in there." And then it's in. And he screams.

It's over in seconds, Beckett has literally grabbed her hand and yanked it out, scolding "Do you have any common sense whatsoever, madame?", and his chest no longer feels like it's full of acid (although there's some residual pain, just a few mildly-agonizing twinges in comparison), and all he can think is "Merlin's BEARD."

Healer Beckett regards him almost sympathetically.

"A bullet wound?" he asks.

"Yeah," mutters Rodolphus. "God," he adds. "Are they supposed to hurt that much?"

"Well," Beckett says briskly, "I don't have much experience with Muggle weapons, I'm afraid, but I would say that yes, that was the--"

"You don't have experience?" Bellatrix interrupts incredulously.

Beckett's stern, unforgiving look comes back. The old sod is not amused, I'm afraid, and there'll be hell to pay if she can't appease his imminent wrath.

"Not many witches use firearms in their domestic arguments, madame."

"He deserved it," says Bellatrix carelessly. "With that little slut," she elaborates. "Squeaking little girl who--"

"And you happened to have a gun on hand?" asks Beckett.

"I collect them," Rodolphus says suddenly.

"Why yes," Bellatrix purrs, a dangerous, don't-ask-questions-or-I-will-kill you tone in her voice, "I did just happen to have a gun."

They both speak at exactly the same time. Beckett, needless to say, isn't buying it.

He turns around to write something in his report (probably "account of injury highly suspicious--illegal circumstances appear reasonable conclusion", or more succinctly, "They're serial killers").

Rodolphus does, it turns out, have some brains after all.

"Imperio," he mutters, his wand pointed directly at the small of the good Healer's back. Beckett turns around, his face utterly blank. Bellatrix grins wickedly.

"Oh, you waited too long." Her face grows serious for a moment, then pitying, as if she can't make up her mind. "Are we planning to Cruciate him?"

"Maybe," Rodolphus growls, glaring at the puppet Beckett. "Bastard," he adds under his breath, his dull eyes still fixed, glued, to the vial of mysterious potion. He failed his Potions O.W.L.s. He still doesn't like the look of that thing, or of any man who'd carry it in his pocket.

It's anesthetic.

She rolls her eyes at his fear. She can sense fear, you know. Most wild animals can, but then most of them aren't sadists who're just deluded about the 'ability'.

"In the middle of St. Mungo's, where let me remind you, they don't like Dark magic one little bit?" He shrugs. "Idiot," she snickers. "There are other things that you can do with the Imperius Curse."

He doesn't get it.

"Like...remote pain?"

"Not just pain," says Bellatrix. She gets up, plucks a nasty-looking implement off the shelf, and standing behind Beckett holds the thing lovingly to his throat. Rodolphus watches. She twitches her hand, giggling. "He's senile enough. Who'd suspect?"

Now he gets it.

"Almost everyone, Bella."

"Think, moron," she scoffs. "Control him for three nights." She imitates Rodolphus's deep voice. "'Give me the damn documents, bitch.'" Shifting back to her own voice, she continues, "have him, tame him, kill him, blame him."

Rodolphus takes a deep breath. He thinks about the repercussions. And he thinks about Bellatrix.

The bugger dies, sorry to those of you who liked him.

"Fine then. I'll do it." He flicks his wand, drawing Beckett forward, and closes his eyes tightly as Beckett's hand moves in toward his chest.

---

**Wow, that got long.**

**Review. Inferi Beckett knows where you live.**


	3. Chapter 3: You'd Think I Do This

**Chapter Title: You'd Think I Do This For A Living**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I also don't own anything else, so there's no point suing me.**

**A/N: And now for something completely different.**

**Well, okay, only mildly different.**

**Now with 100 percent more Lucius!**

**Warnings: Moderate language, disturbing dream sequence.**

---

He's one thing in the daytime. Another thing at night. Changing his face seamlessly to suit the occasion.

He's a strutting peacock, a merciless killer, a kind benefactor. Whatever you choose. He'll play the role for you. Uncovering everything you want to hear.

He's a Death Eater, although that's hardly what he wants you to think.

He's a politician in all but name, proud of the sway he holds over our innocent hearts and minds.

Both roles are masks. They're good masks, I'll admit. Almost fixed to his skin, becoming more and more seamless, and the day one of them finally sticks will be a bad day for Wizardkind either way.

People love him. He's a charismatic man, Lucius Malfoy.

Even I, the so-called impartial observer, the impotent god who sits and watches and grieves for knowing how the liar's going to lose, can't help but admire him a bit. There's no cognitive dissonance for him, or so he thinks, even with Voldemort pulling him in one direction and the facade sapping his strength in the other. Not yet.

Look, ladies and gents, he can even lie to himself.

It's not beginning to show on the surface, I'll admit. He's a good player.

He could keep this up forever. Playing against himself. The Death Eater against the Ministry man. Tossing the ball into his own hoops and hurling it back, making sure that neither side gets too good or does something that he can't counter or even (horror of horrors) goes for the Snitch, keeping the two sides balanced. It wouldn't do to let either one get out of hand. If the Ministry wins, and he's chosen the Dark Lord's side, he's screwed. If the Dark Lord wins, he's worse than dead.

He's only after power.

So here he is, sitting peaceably, drink in hand, in one of the more useless rooms of his manor, prattling away to the man who might save his life one day. He's a good prattler. He can say anything and you'll believe him. It doesn't matter if he believes it or not. Hell, he doesn't care what he believes. He's not too deeply invested either way, or so he likes to tell himself. No cognitive dissonance here. None at all.

Crouch isn't buying it. Oh, he doesn't think our hero's a Death Eater. Lucius hasn't dropped the ball that badly. But he's tired, and he's missed a few shots, and when Crouch mentioned that there'd been a new murder, he had no idea what the hell to say.

"When did you find out?" he asks, perfectly composed as always.

"Early this morning," Crouch responds. "The Dark Mark had been sent up."

Compassion, Lucius thinks. Not too much, or he'll suspect. Just enough so as not to seem heartless, and then act shocked when he tells you the details.

"I'm sorry," he lies. "I assume it was the Death Eaters?"

"Clearly," Crouch observes dryly. "Unless you mean to tell me that some other organization is now using the Dark Mark?"

"No," Lucius admits. "I assume," he adds, a bit annoyed by his blunder, (the drinks, he assumes, must be having more of an effect than he anticipated) "that it was a...nasty murder?"

"Sadistic," corrects his opponent. Bellatrix, laughing like the maniac she is, pops uninvited into Lucius's head. It's been a long day and he can't get rid of her. "The methods of killing used were..." Even Crouch looks unsettled. "...extremely brutal."

"You will make--"

"Every effort to bring the responsible parties to justice," Crouch completes.

"Good," says Lucius, nervously wondering exactly how they plan to do such a thing and at the same time quite aware that he doesn't want to know. "I expect that my tax money is being put to good use."

Crouch is not amused. He's known for it. Lucius has already admitted to himself that he has no idea what the hell he's doing with dear Barty. He may well be out of his league. There's no crack in the man's defenses that he can find, no way of playing on his emotions to get him on his side. If Crouch had some human element to his personality, it might be easier.

Probably you have to shut down all humanity to deal with crimes like the ones dear Lucius perpetrates almost nightly. Imagine waking up and hearing that there's been another murder, and apparently it's so shocking that they want you to see it for yourself, and when you get there one of your best Aurors is throwing up in the bushes. That tells you everything you need to know about the crime before you even get into the house. But you go anyway, and minutes later you, too, are outside, trying to catch your breath.

Before you idolize Lucius and his compatriots, think about it.

"I suppose the Muggle Protection Act will be of some use to your department?" Lucius asks, trying not to sneer. Patience, Lucius, he tells himself sternly. Your personal feelings are, at the moment, quite irrelevant to the discussion...it's a good line, and he lets himself smile a little inside.

"The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts brainchild?" Crouch shoots back. "Hardly. The Death Eaters must be stopped," he emphasizes, watching Lucius's expression, "and damage reduction, pleasant as it may sound, is--"

"Public relations," Lucius completes. "Entirely politics, is it not? Keeping the populace happy?"

"The public is unlikely to be happy until He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" (Lucius smiles inside again, satisfied--even Crouch is afraid to use the Dark Lord's name) "is dead" (An internal squawk of trained outrage, panic and discomfort, left over from his brainwashing at Voldemort's hands. He silences it quickly before it shows on his face, wrenching his demeanor back to calm.) "and his followers dead or in Azkaban." (Genuine panic.)

"Understandably," says Lucius. His eyes flicker to the sunset outside the window. The warm, friendly light of the room is fading rapidly, and Lucius is enough of a psychological master to know what that will do to his discussion. He gets up, his relaxed posture changing to one of subtle dominance, and with a flick of his wand he lights every candle in the room. Crouch watches, his expression unreadable. The shadow that the candles cast across his face blots out any trace of emotion; Lucius moves three steps to the right to throw the shadow over his own face instead. He smiles while he does it, just to take the aggressive edge away.

This is what you do to gain support if you don't have any actual morals.

"Has your department made any arrests lately?" he inquires casually, as if he doesn't already know that they haven't.

Crouch puts down his drink, glaring up at Lucius. His patience is running thin.

"No," he snaps, "we have not."

Lucius lets his face fall naturally into a look of sympathy. It's an artistic creation, too, the basic sad half-smile mixed with a touch of pity and just a hint of annoyance. Not something he ever wants to have to use--it undermines his magnificence just a tad. An ego is a terrible thing to mind.

His arrogance could be his fatal flaw. He's such a calculating bastard, though, that I prefer to think of it as his redeeming virtue, determined solely by the process of elimination.

"I hear," he lies, his voice mostly casual but beginning to waver a bit, "that Jonathan Avery was under investigation."

Crouch stares at him, trying to figure out his source.

"I have a rather useful contact," Lucius adds, smirking. "Obviously, I cannot mention his name..."

In fact, he heard it through a long chain of contacts. Crouch's half-mad teenage son, Barty Jr., overheard his father talking about it. Barty told his close friend, vicious little Rabastan, who eagerly gave up the information to his much-loathed sister-in-law Bellatrix, who gleefully told everyone she could think of. Think of a long game of 'telephone'.

Avery was never under investigation in the first place.

As it happens, when Crouch goes home tonight, he'll send in the order to take a closer look at Jonathan Albert Avery's private business.

Unfortunate things happen in politics.

After that, they don't talk much. What else is there to say, really? "How much money do you want for giving your full support to this bill?" The Malfoy family fortune wouldn't be enough. His usual tactics would get him flung onto the front page of the _Daily Prophet_, disgraced and probably impoverished.

That really would not be an ideal situation.

It takes far too long, Lucius thinks, for Crouch to leave. By the time he finally puts on his cloak and heads for the door, Lucius is too tired to consider the implications of the evening. If there were any. No, he didn't make any political headway, did he...?

When he falls asleep, he dreams that he's lying in a kitchen in a Muggle restaraunt. Voldemort is the chef. "I'm Lucius Malfoy," he screams, but no one listens. It's a busy night, and someone's ordered pork, and Voldemort really has no time to consider. So Lucius begs and pleads, but they put him on a platter and Bellatrix the blood-spattered waitress comes into the kitchen, smiling, and takes the whole lovely dish out to a table of Ministry politicians.

For the final indignity, it seems that Barty Crouch Sr. ordered steak and not pork, and Bellatrix takes Lucius out into the night and throws him away, still smiling, with blood running down her face and her skimpy uniform.

This really was _not_ a productive evening.

Please review.

Please.

I'm running out of witty things to say here, I'm afraid.


	4. Chapter 4: Neurosis Fun Time

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Therefore, I could theoretically be sued for writing this.**

**I will bake J.K. Rowling all the slightly burnt cookies she requires in order to keep her happy.**

**A/N: Moderately long chapter here--I decided I didn't like Avery much, so I needed to find some way to Exit Avery, Stage Left, As Soon As Humanly Possible.**

**Warnings: Strong language, sexual innuendo, use of alcohol, mentions of violence, various Death Eater-ish things, intolerance, squicky implications, desire to kill the narrator, and personages with Y chromosomes.**

**---**

Click goes the lock on the door, and then he's inside. And back outside. After a minute, when his heart rate starts to settle and the tingling numbness is retreating from his extremities, he goes back in.

"Calm down," he silently scolds himself. "Don't be such a bloody sissy. Pansy," he mentally adds, reveling in his self-hatred. "Nancy boy. That's what I am. Rabastan the nancy boy. I'm shivering," he notes with distaste. "If Rodolphus and Bellatrix catch me in here..."

But they won't catch him. They aren't even home yet. He confirmed that before he even thought of his reckless little adventure.

Excuses, he thinks, just in case he gets caught and has to gibber out some explanation. He needs an excuse. Glasses (glasses! God, he's such a stereotype, even he knows it) are expensive, and Bellatrix likes to snap Rabastan's glasses in half before she heats the metal to melting point and jams them into his chest. 'I was looking for my Potions book.' He graduated three months ago. 'I thought you were in here.' Not good enough. 'Wha...? (gibberish) Took...t'mussh...medishin...'gen...' Plausible, but on the whole he'd rather not. Perhaps he'll just jump out the window and shatter every bone in his body before dear brother Roddy gets a chance to.

He really shouldn't be in here. But he just couldn't help himself, could he?

He wants answers that he's not going to like. After all, he IS a pansy. He's scared out of his bloody mind, acutely aware of the wand in his pocket and knowing that he might not be able to get to it in time; every creak threatens to send his blood pressure up to heart-bursting levels--oh _god, he shouldn't have thought that, now he can just feel the blood_ dripping down from his eyes and lips and brain. He's quite alone in the room (it's a marital bedroom, so no voyeuristic portraits), but he feels as if someone's watching him and cataloging all the offenses he's making against nature, not least being alive in the first place.

And he still thinks it's worth it. For now.

Nothing's tried to kill him yet, anyway. Not exactly what he expected. He's a complete wreck, standing in the middle of his brother and sister-in-law's bedroom, hoping that they won't come in and rip him to shreds before he can find what he came for. Which reminds him. What the _hell_ does he think he's doing, anyway? What did he think he was going to find? And why in Merlin's name did he risk it?

"They're out, yes, at the opera with Rosier and Wilkes," he reminds himself sternly. Out loud, too, and he nearly panics at the sound of his own voice before he remembers who the soft, quavering only-a-tenor-because-men-can't-be-sopranos of the house is. He hates how girlish his voice sounds, and for a moment the part of him that thinks it's Rabastan Virgil (his mother's sin was a liking for Latin poetry) Lestrange, Terror of the Ages, takes command. He takes a few steps toward the towering mahogany wardrobe in the corner of the room, trying to swagger, but then slips back into his normal erratic stagger.

The dictionary probably has a definition for his type. I've looked it up, I swear, I'm no stupider than choosing to write about the boy in the first place would make me. Inbred crazy twit, it says: pronounced exactly how you would think, noun, defined as 'an effeminate young man, usually between the ages of twelve and thirty, with at least three crippling diseases and forty-five separate neuroses, due in equal parts to excessive sibling marriage in the family tree, a nightmarish upbringing, and quack attempts to cure all the other problems.'

Most of them aren't _completely_ batshit insane, though.

Our hero Rabastan opens the wardrobe, gasping with the effort, disgusted with his frailty. **He will do this**, no matter what his paranoia has to say about it.

There's not much of interest in the wardrobe at first glance. Clothes, mostly. Clothes are irrelevant, uninteresting. They look like Rodolphus's, he thinks, carefully sliding them aside, trying not to spare them a second glance. Nothing he really needs to know, is there? A pile of robes, no doubt neatly folded by Spinks the house-elf. He tosses them aside without bothering to refold them--he isn't _that_ neurotic. Velvet, silk, leather--leather, how _lovely_, he didn't need to know that--glass. His bony fingers scrabble over something smooth.

He pulls it out by reflex, in a swift, jerky motion, and he's unspeakably relieved when it turns out to be just a liquor bottle. He isn't sure what he thought it was. Something unknown and frightening, some mysterious Dark artifact. Just an empty bottle. That isn't nearly as threatening. He already _knew_ Rodolphus was probably an alcoholic. Having his fears confirmed, or at least bolstered, isn't so bad after all.

There's a mirror on the inside of the wardrobe's door. An old one, with flecked glass and a patina on the silver frame. He likes it on sight. His reflection is bubbly, cloudy and distorted, like medieval glass applied to one of the photographs he's always taking of himself.

There's a boy in the mirror, a boy about seventeen, Rabastan's age. He has long brown hair, as limp and sickly as the rest of him, falling softly around his face and casting shadows across his forehead and prominent cheekbones. Everything about him reminds Rabastan of a dying plant--he's very thin, so thin you can see how oddly formed his narrow shoulders are and his good bone structure (when he asked Rodolphus if he was hideously ugly yet, Rodolphus had just smiled sadly and said "You have really good bone structure." Rabastan had _wanted_ to die after that). His skin looks like marble, strangely dead and white, oddly clouded just under the surface, and beardless like a girl's.

He does look like a girl, doesn't he? He's tiny. So tiny. Barely five foot two and eighty pounds. With a body that means that he can never, never get a drink at the Leaky Cauldron, even though he swears he's seventeen. His bones are spindly, like spun sugar, and Rodolphus has a curious little habit of threatening to snap Rabastan's spine when he loses his temper. He nursed Rabastan through four excruciating years, when all of them thought he would die...so unimaginably selfish of his ancestors, to breed themselves into a state where even the slightest cold would leave their great-great-great-et-cetera grandson close to death. Half the Wizarding world must have conspired, he decided long ago in one of his many fits of paranoia, to breed all his strength out of him.

These are the purebloods that respected Lord Voldemort wants to save.

The boy in the mirror looks like a Victorian daguerreotype. Almost black-and-white, with dark shadows around his eyes, wilting gracefully like a flower kept away from the light. The only things in his face that have any color, any animation, are his eyes. They're beautiful eyes, in a way, one minute bright and sparkling with optimism that he does not have and a mania that he has far too much of, the next minute dark, joyless, and twitchy. Bellatrix likes to say that Mr. Lestrange (may he rest in peace) bought the boy the glasses because he couldn't stand to look at those eyes any longer, although she never has explained why the Ministry of Magic hasn't passed a law requiring Rodolphus to wear dark glasses at all times, so it's probably pointless for me to mention it.

Rabastan doesn't want to think that that's him. Rodolphus, he decided long ago, got the looks in the family. Handsome brother Rodolphus, Rabastan calls him in his head. He knows every little detail of his brother's appearance; he's studied and memorized the contours of his face, acutely aware that he'd rather look at his brother than himself. Actually, he'd much rather look at Rodolphus then anything else in the room, most of the time. Pride, jealousy, admiration--he has a million justifications, each one telling only a part of the twisted little story. Mostly it's that he just likes to look. There aren't many flaws in Rodolphus's appearance, even to an objective observer, and Rabastan rationalizes away the ones that there are.

He can't help but admit, though, that Rodolphus's vacant stare is rather freakish. Hell, Rabastan, in his infinite mental instability, is convinced that his brother defies biology and doesn't blink. He's a very kind, gentle man, at least to Rabastan and at least most of the time, but even now Rabastan can vividly feel the impact of that stare on the back of his neck.

One night, not too long ago, not long enough ago for the memory to have faded, Rabastan couldn't sleep. He's always been a bit of an insomniac. Fair enough. He got up, lit his wand, and it occurred to him that he really would like some cocoa. He almost summoned Spinks and told her to make some then, but he remembered just in time that Rodolphus liked cocoa, too, and Rodolphus had said that he and Bellatrix were going to be up late 'working', and, Rabastan wondered, on the off chance that they weren't doing anything too marital, would they like some cocoa? So he went off, disordered train of thought fizzing away, to find Rodolphus and Bellatrix, and when he found them he'd listened at the door for a minute just to make sure, because after all there were some things he _didn't_ want to walk in on. It seemed like they were talking to a third person, and he was still a bit too innocent to have assumed that they'd transgressed sexual boundaries still further, so he'd pushed the door open, and...all the cocoa in the world was never going to help with that mental image, was it?

It hadn't been something sexual. At least, and the idea sent shivers down his spine, he hoped it hadn't.

(Although with Rodolphus and Bellatrix, one never knows.)

So Rabastan's insomnia and his impending madness just got worse, for weeks and weeks, and finally he couldn't take it anymore and now here he is. He's abandoned the wardrobe now, more or less, after he noticed some bloodstains on one of Rodolphus's robes and was unpleasantly reminded of that horrible, unbearable, traumatizing, childhood-ending night when he'd lost his innocence forever. At least that's how he thinks of it.

There's a lot more innocence left to lose.

He's found a sheaf of parchment, letters and notes and whatever else Bellatrix writes, an untidy mass of correspondence with Bellatrix's chaotic purple writing marching over it in no prearranged order or format, like an army of insane indigo ants. (Rabastan's simile, not mine. He thinks he's clever enough to get away with it, god help us all.) Not the sort of thing he wants to go through when he doesn't know when she'll be back. So he's just skimming it, twitching the papers aside at the speed of light, his eyes whizzing over her unreadable writing and looking for some kind of pattern. It's not an efficient way to read, let me assure you. Don't try to do your homework that way. He isn't getting much out of it at all. A few names jump out at him occasionally: his sister-in-law Narcissa Malfoy, who he rather likes, and Antonin Dolohov, who he's never met. His friend Barty's father, also named Bartemius Crouch, is mentioned (at least he assumes it's the elder one, knowing as he does that Barty is fifteen and makes a point of staying the hell away from politics), and so is Minister for Magic Millicent Bagnold.

Just a jumble of names. The sort of insane mess that can be found at all hours playing itself out inside his useless little brain. Nothing relevant to his little quest. "This," Rabastan hisses under his breath, "is idiotic." The raspy sound of his voice unnerves him, and his next sentences are mental only."Bellatrix won't miss the letters, will she? No. So she won't care if they're gone, will she, if I take them?" And he does. Before his common sense can say anything about it, he picks up the letters in his strange, affected way, and slides them neatly into the pocket of his robes that, he had almost convinced himself before he came in, he most definitely was not going to use for that purpose.

He immediately feels like he's done something wrong. Not just morally, although why he'd be worried about _that_ is beyond me. Against the nature of the universe. He's a well-conditioned little boy, like Pavlov's dogs, if Pavlov punished his dogs and threatened to kill them, which, I have no doubt, he did.

The edge of one of the letters scrapes against his skin and he panics. He nearly shrieks. It feels like the knife that's gone over the same spot so many, many times in Bellatrix's ill-advised attempt at putting the fear of God, or the Dark Lord, into him. All the fear that's been building up ever since he stepped into this room washes over him in an instant, and his pathetic natural trauma response kicks in.

He panics, of course. Far more dramatically than, strictly speaking, he had to, hamming it up for his invisible audience of nobody and kicking himself into even more of a frenzy. It suddenly occurs to him, for example, how very vulnerable he is in the room, with nothing but a thin layer of cloth between him and a sudden spell. And his wand is in his pocket--he can't reach it in time, can he, because his hands are over his face. It's a stupid move, a pointless one, because the scenes of death and carnage have just relocated to inside his eyelids, and he's the leading man, with Bellatrix as his lovely (he might laugh, if he wasn't hyperventilating himself to death) lady. Every noise, even little ones that no sane person would notice, reminds him that she's coming, probably coming right now, and when she finds the poor little waif cowering in the corner, she'll give him a reason for his cowardice...

He grabs the first thing he sees, Rodolphus's pillow, for comfort. Kind of a primitive teddy bear. He can't breathe now, either, but it's because he has the pillow pressed into his face. His heartbeat slows and the process of asphyxiation begins.

I won't describe what the next few minutes are like for him. You, dear readers, don't care anyway. Some of you are reading this, no doubt, for a voyeuristic look at the blood and sex and sordid depravity that Bellatrix and her kind so love to perpetrate. Some of you are reading it for the moral messages. Let me satisfy your inclinations: They're all doomed bastards and they're going to burn in hell. Some of you, hopefully most of you, are reading it because you like a good story, or even a bad one, and I'll apologize in advance for underestimating your no doubt impressive collective intelligence.

How many of you signed up for the batshittery? The neurosis? The abject terror that I hope to God you never have to feel? Don't worry. Rabastan will be much, much more entertaining and, dare I say it, sickeningly likeable, once he gets through his little bitch-fit. And he will. Even now, his muscle spasms and involuntary trembling are startening to fade. His fingers are loosening on the pillow, and he's uncurling from fetal position.

"Pansy, aren't I?" he derides himself, out loud, both to satisfy his gnawing self-hatred and reassure himself that his vocal chords still function. He looks up, drawing a few breaths.

That's when he sees it.

I never said that Rodolphus was inventive with hiding places. For all I know, he wanted Rabastan to find it. It wouldn't be at all unusual for him to do something like that. Unintelligent and badly educated as he is, he has a surprising grasp of Rabastan's character.

Rabastan knows that. He resents it a bit. He doesn't like to think that he can be understood so easily.

He takes the diary anyway. It doesn't bite him when he picks it up; when his instinctive aversion to the little book fades and he loosens his grip, it falls open in his hand.

Of course, he reads it. He's that sort of person.

"Rodolphus's handwriting," he thinks, scanning the page, "is appalling."

_January 19th, 1973_ (A few years ago now)

_Bad day.  
__Bella's been acting strange. Cold one minute. Passionate the next. She keeps talking about Narcissa. Prob. angry because she got married Tuesday. Doesn't like Lucius._

_We went to the wedding though. Don't remember much. Would have been good, but Bella wouldn't dance with me. Nice music, though. Verdi, mostly, from_ Aida_. Decent performance. (Memo: get tickets.) Good food and wine. Wound up getting drunk. Apparently got into fight with Dolohov and called his sister a two-Sickle whore. (Memo: apologize.)_

_Horrible hangover yesterday. Rab told me I was letting myself go and I'll be dead by fifty. (Memo: Ask Healer about that sometime. Prefer not to die of liver disease if at all possible.) Almost didn't care. Bellatrix thought whole thing was funny. Rab called her something, didn't hear what. Now she's not speaking to either of us.  
__She didn't beat me up until after Rab went to bed though. Nice of her. (Not serious enough for St. Mungo's. Bruises, a few cuts. Memo: get more anesthetic next time in London.)_

_No idea how to tell her I feel sorry for her. She works too hard. When I tell her, she's always all "It's for a good cause, you don't know how much pleasure it brings me, you just don't understand."_

_D. L. assigned us to Sesserinton. Not much left when we finished. Would've been fun (I got half the village) but my head hurt and Bella still isn't speaking to me. Enjoyed it for a while, though. Had to wash blood off before we got home so Rab wouldn't notice.  
__Memo: think of better alibi. "Taking Bella out to dinner" isn't convincing anymore, with Bella acting the way she is.  
__Guess it's my fault. Poor Bella. Memo: Buy her chocolates tomorrow. Tell Spinks to get more wine._

_-Rodolphus (so fucked up)_

How very illuminating.

Rabastan doesn't say anything. He doesn't think anything much, either, at least not consciously. A lot is going on in his subconscious. Occasionally, a few shreds slip through into actual thoughts: "I was right, wasn't I?" "As if finding the blood and the bottles and the letters didn't convince me." "It's the worst case scenario. Game over." Finally, it resolves into "Ah, I'm so damn melodramatic. There's nothing here I don't know. He's an alcoholic (fairly obvious), Bella beats him (poor bugger), and he's with the Dark Lord."

Oh, damn.

"He's with the Dark Lord." He repeats it to himself, out loud, savoring the implicit betrayal. "He _lied_ to me."

And he gets the hell out of the room, barely leaving time to close the door so they won't know where he's been.

It takes him a little longer than it should to get back to his room. The floorplan of the townhouse in London is different enough from the castle in Scotland to confuse him; he's so preoccupied with his own delusions that he never bothered to learn it, it never became unconscious. Now he's very alert, conscious of everything he's doing, and he is very aware that he has no idea where the hell he is.

It unnerves him even more that he doesn't know.

So he stumbles, half-mad, through the door of his bedroom, pitching himself onto the bed. It's a small room, much smaller than the one he thinks of as 'his', and his books are piled on the bed for lack of space; one of the piles collapses when its master comes in. He's facedown in the pillow, breathing in the faint musky scent of the aftershave he doesn't strictly need. One of the candles lights itself, and he jumps, twisting upright (his ribs show through his skin and he looks like a tangle of coat hangers as he moves) and hugging his knees, his face buried in his chest, curled up in a posture that'll break your spines if you try it. His worldview's just had the shit shocked out of it, and at the same time his worst fears and his deepest, sickest hopes have been confirmed. Forgive his neurosis. He's a little bit sick.

Rabastan doesn't know how long he stays like that. He's been wasting time all afternoon; why not throw a few more minutes away? He can just barely see, with his eyes just open enough to dispel the nameless fears, the letters that slipped out of his robes onto the floor and the diary lying on the bed. He wants to read them again, and at the same time, he really, _really_ doesn't want to. The feelings that the diary, in particular, gives him are almost sexual: good feelings, tingly and excited and forbidden, but at the same time far, far too intense for comfort.

He wants to run far, far away from the filth, somewhere where his heart rate will sink into normalcy and he doesn't feel he has to scream anymore.

And he reads the thing again.

It doesn't take him long to find the entry he least wants to look at.

_June 1st, 1971_

_WEDDING DAY!_

_-Rodolphus (lucky sod)_

_(later)_

_I want a damn do-over._ (Rodolphus **does** swear a lot. Why do you ask?) _Best day of my life and I guess it's over._

_I'd never seen Bella's wedding robes before. (Bella. My WIFE. Bellatrix Lestrange. Bellatrix Artemis Lestrange. Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange. Mrs. Rodolphus Lestrange. Mistress Bella. Whatever. So bloody sentimental.) They were green, with white and black accents. Her hair was down like always and it's really long, longer than Rabastan's. I was wearing red so we looked like a Christmas tree. She's really pretty._

_I can't believe she wants me sometimes. Can't believe she loves me.  
__She can't really believe it either, I guess. Doesn't want to admit it, but we both know.  
__It's why she hits me._

_Rabastan wanted to be the best man. Didn't have the heart to stop him._

_Healers don't think he's going to get better._

"I pulled through," Rabastan whispers, half-disbelieving. "I recovered." He knew they'd said this.

He just didn't have any proof. He tends toward that, thinking things with no proof. It seemed harmless at the time.

Now he has far too much.

_Georgina said he has three, four months, maybe.  
__He's fucking TWELVE. I still don't want to believe he's going to die. Not when my life is just starting, really. I had my wedding in June for two reasons (did I mention these?):_

_They say a June bride finds true happiness._

_I wanted Rabastan to still be fucking alive._

_He looked so sick, so weak. Can't help but wonder how much he weighs--we were screwing around before the thing started and I could pick him up with one hand. He has huge dark circles around his eyes and he's really pale so you can see them. I found some old photographs of me and Bella when we were twelve. Didn't look anything like that. I always had kind of tan skin, never dark circles, I was tall for my age, and I was never exactly skinny. Actually, I still look a lot like that. Can't imagine what he's going to look like when he's twenty. If he lives to twenty._

_He was crying. Guess that's why._

"You," Rabastan hisses, surreptitiously testing his all-too-prominent cheekbone with one finger, "don't know anything about me."

Of course, Rabastan himself doesn't know why he was crying, even though it's so obvious to anyone with a working knowledge of his psyche.

Perhaps it's just too disgusting.

The bride looked lovely, didn't she? He doesn't remember. He doesn't like Bellatrix anyway. And he was really thinking more about the bridegroom.

Oh, yes, Rodolphus _was_ happy. His ruddy skin was glowing from the inside, and for once there was some sort of emotion in his eyes. And Rabastan secretly hoped that the marriage ended in divorce two weeks in.

Kiss the bride.

_Half the time I felt like I was the only person there who was really happy. Bella doesn't like weddings. She says they bore her. How would you know, I ask her, you've never been to one. She just glares at me. And I like weddings. Wanted to dance with her all night. She let me have most of it. We danced, and talked, had a few drinks, and then she buggered off somewhere. Don't know where._

_She's still gone._

_I had to finish the reception by myself. I danced with Narcissa a few times (Rabastan was out of his mind on his medicine, gibbering and staggering around_

"I was NOT--"

_and eventually he just passed out under a table.), but it wasn't the same. For all I know they're still dancing down there, it's nearly dawn and I don't want to go down and check._

_I really wanted to be with her for the whole night._

_-Rodolphus (lonely bastard)_

_(later)_

_She came back._

_-Rodolphus (I saved my bloody virginity for her HELL YES)_

He sits there and his mind boils. He reads it once, twice more. And then, for a million reasons, his suppressed anger and undeniable badassery decide that he is not going to take this anymore.

Rabastan feels like flinging the little book across the room. There's a maelstrom, a monster, twisted, boiling rage, trying to make its way out of his skull, and it's all he can do not to tear his dear brother's heartfelt ramblings into shreds.

"THINK, MORON, SHE WANTS TO KILL YOU, AND YOU JUST--YOU ONLY--" escapes his throat. Not much could. There's a corset around his throat, tightening and tightening, until he can barely spit his incoherent protests around his uncooperative tongue.

He can hear faint conversation down in the drawing room, almost directly below his bedroom.

Rabastan Virgil Lestrange is pissed.

He goes down.

**---**

**It's Your Head A Splode time, brother dear.**

**Hint, hint.**


	5. Chapter 5: Rabastan Versus Bellatrix

**Disclaimer: I don't do this for a living, sadly enough. I'm making no money off of it at all. If I made the same kind of money off of writing my fanfiction that Jo Rowling does from the Potter books, I would be currently lying in my Jacuzzi, drinking amusing yet nonalcoholic and thus legal beverages, and surrounded by extremely attractive specimens of humanity, and I wouldn't have time to write. Not that I'm implying that that's what Jo does when she should be writing, or anything. Really. Please don't sue me.**

**A/N: Yes, another addition to the fine tradition of stories about the Death Eaters getting drunk. I'm so wonderfully original.**

**Warnings: Alcohol use, swearing, sexual banter, discussions of violence, violence/physical abuse, sending Avery nasty letters, extremely long chapter, motley Death Eater-ish behaviors, et cetera. Vaguely political/religious statements here and there--some reflect my political/religious views, some don't, please don't flame. Also, teenagers are frequently mocked. Please note here that I'm well under legal driving age and leave it at that.**

---

Let's rewind the story a few hours. Going back to when Rodolphus and Bellatrix and their old schoolmates come home from their night of decadence and decay. They've been to the opera--_La Boheme_, Rodolphus's favorite (he cried)--and to one of the finest restaurants in London. You don't need to know about that, not because it was gory, necessarily (let's imagine that it wasn't), but because it's boring and irrelevant. Skip forward to the good part.

They've settled into the parlor, amply supplied with a few delicious and highly illegal substances, and Spinks the house-elf has shut up and buggered off at long last. No point in the servants overhearing, is there? Bellatrix has managed to fight down the urge to slaughter the elf in front of her guests, who, truth be told, would probably enjoy the sight, and conversation stalls for a minute or so while they all think of something halfway intelligent to say.

"So," Edmund Wilkes tosses out, casually, "where's your brother?"

"No idea."

"You don't even know?" Evan Rosier asks, innocently enough.

"He never knows," says Bellatrix. She leans back in her chair, smiling sardonically, making you want to kill her and letting you know that you'd never have a chance to try. "How else would Rabastan's opium habit have started?"

Rodolphus looks startled for a minute, then glowers at her.

"Don't say that."

"Is it true?" Evan ventures, looking for more gossip.

"Probably," says Bellatrix, smirking as if, despite what she says, she has incontrovertible proof that Rabastan's pitiable eccentricity is his own damn fault. Evan and Edmund laugh obediently--it's best to laugh when she wants you to--and so does Rodolphus after a suitable pause.

"Malfoy drinks," Edmund mutters. "We've all got our vices." He doesn't point out his own.

"Not very much," Evan reminds him. "Only in company. Now," he adds, apparently oblivious to his current company, "if he was more involved in the Dark Arts, it might be a problem..."

"Oh," Bellatrix says carelessly, "he might blow his head off, might he not? Drunks," she adds with satisfaction, "human trash--"

"Drains on society," mutters Edmund.

"--deserve nothing less than death."

"Or imprisonment," Evan reminds her.

She shakes her head vehemently.

"For decent purebloods" (Nobody notices the association of 'lesser' birth with alcoholism--for this company, it goes without saying) "to feed and house?" The disdain in her voice is almost physical. "Do you pay taxes?"

Rodolphus, who drinks just as much as any theoretical 'Mudblood', drains his glass, less than a minute after picking it up. He slams it into the table with the hostile thump of glass pounding wood, so hard it leaves a mark.

"SPINKS!"

The elf anticipated this, and in a second she's at his side, handing him another one, both her and the drink bubbling over with happy servitude. He doesn't thank her, but downs the spirits in one go, eyes closed. Bellatrix takes the empty glass out of his hand and flicks it at Spinks, who twitches briefly as the thick glass hits her and drops heavily to the ground.

"Nice shot," says Evan, a bit awed (husband and wife are on opposite sides of the small room, and Spinks is a small target). "I couldn't have gotten within ten feet of it."

"Another thing that you can't do," she says.

After that, the conversation starts up in earnest. Mostly it's due to the firewhisky, strong stuff in its own right and spiked with whatever the hell Rodolphus puts in it, which unsurprisingly has been illegal in England since 1293.

I suppose it's time to give Edmund Wilkes and Evan Rosier proper introductions. Say "hello" like you mean it. They won't settle for anything less. And when Evan tells Edmund to "please don't kill them", he's playacting, and what he really means is "let's make them think they have a chance". Evan's the nice one, the good cop, a blond dandy with an air of cheerful naivete that makes you want to trust him and also generally makes the saner ones among us wonder what the hell he's up to.

You can't trust anyone, can you? So sad.

Edmund's the one that you can _believe_ hangs around with the Lestranges. It's not that he's pure evil, so much, although that may well be the best descriptor. He's small and dark and saturnine, and he looks about ten years older than his age: he's twenty-five, but he'd prefer you to think that he was around forty. And he's a world-class bugger, rumors about his sexual preference aside (please, let's try to be tasteful), cynical and worldly and just as hypocritical as the lofty folks he decries. He's read his Nietzche (Muggle!) and his Locke (Scum!), and even though he won't admit to it he can outline Karl Marx's ideas (Muggle ideas!) quite well, but these lofty thinkers haven't rubbed off on him much. "Nasty, brutish, and short." Such a critic.

"You know," he says after a few rounds of 'insult Rosier mercilessly', "you wouldn't think that a man like Lestrange here" (Rodolphus tenses slightly, expecting an insult) "would be one for opera."

"Oh, Roddy loves the opera, doesn't he? He drags us to London for his opera, twice, no, three times a month. He _cried_," Bellatrix says with relish, "so much. You might think" (here she pauses, her eyes narrowed and a playful smirk firmly in place) "that I'd had the Cruciatus Curse on him for the last song. Although I must confess that that was what it sounded like, didn't it?"

"That was soprano," her husband points out, annoyed more by the error than the threat. "I have a bass voice, Bella, would have sounded different--"

"And of course," she cuts him off, "you would have been shrieking and thrashing." She pauses, disappointed by the eternal failure of reality to live up to her expectations. "It would have been more entertaining that way."

"Bring Lucius next time," Evan pipes up, a bit flushed from excitement and intoxication, his blond hair falling out of its elegantly lacquered sweep. "Take him onstage at intermission--"

"And beat him to death with a chair," Rodolphus interrupts. He's smiling now; much larger than Evan and much more prone to drinking, he's consumed twice as much firewhisky but he's less than half as drunk. So it isn't the alcohol but the thought of violence that's sending happy chemicals through his brain. It tends to do that.

Bellatrix gets the same happy chemicals, possibly even more so; she's never really seen the appeal in losing oneself to drink when any fool can get a far better high from killing. Even thinking about it sends shivers down her spine, and in moments she's half-lost in a fantasy far more vivid and fulfilling than any sexual fantasy she could conjure up.

"Rabastan, too," she murmurs dreamily, "and Avery." Her eyes snap open again, and her face loses its introspective look. Her usual outspoken mania is back, and her sudden shrieks of "Avery! Avery!" dissolve quickly into hysterical laughter. Rabastan, two floors and six rooms away, in her bedroom, registers it subconsciously, and you _know_ what happens next.

"Oh, yeah!" Whatever the hell 'it' is, Rodolphus has it too. It's the look you see in the eyes of an Inferius a few seconds after animation, bright and glassy and utterly inhuman. It's a feeling of madness, of _wrongness_, of some deep disturbance, that I can't name or begin to describe without bringing in the lovely descriptive phrase 'lightbulbs in his eye sockets'; if Evan and Edmund, who started to lose their built-up tolerance for that expression after they left Hogwarts, knew what lightbulbs were, no doubt they would wax eloquent about the smooth blankness of his eyes, the artificial-looking light. "Avery in drag as Carmen," he elaborates, grinning, "hanging over the orchestra pit--"

"Oh, yes, he'll fall if you hit him in the right place, that's the game--"

"Put the string section out of tune for a month--"

"I get the feeling," says Evan, half-smiling, "that you heard about the Dark Lord's displeasure with Avery?"

"Everyone," Edmund cuts across him, rolling his eyes in a fashion he won't admit to having practiced, "heard about that. It's old news."

"Not surprised." Rodolphus sips his drink, his smile gone as quickly as it appeared. "Avery pisses everyone off."

"You liked him at Hogwarts," Evan accuses him, looking hurt. Wondering about their friendship, as if Rodolphus doesn't make it perfectly plain when he wants to kill someone.

"No, I didn't."

More drinks. More laughter, becoming a little bit unhinged where it wasn't already. Outside, the sun's gone down, not that they notice or care. Rabastan, up in his room, is pawing through and violating Rodolphus's deepest secrets. Names for Avery get thrown around, becoming more and more insulting, starting with one that might be more presentable as "Oedipus" and going from there, until they've implied that he's bedded, in various lewd and deeply painful ways, half of his extended family, the entire Muggle population of Great Britain, and assorted farm animals.

"In other words," Bellatrix intones faux-sweetly, just barely under her breath, "the sort of things dear Rosier and Wilkes do when the lights go out."

"Not to mention you and Rodolphus," says Edmund, scowling.

"You forgot the chains and whips," Rodolphus growls, shamelessly. "And the Imperius Curse."

The rumors, it seems, are quite true. No, it isn't so much that the Death Eaters are all sex maniacs (although I won't deny it necessarily); they're more concerned, really, with what their compatriots do in bed than anything else. One has to enforce normality, after all...besides, Rodolphus is a handsome man, and Bellatrix a beautiful woman, and even if they hate each other half the time, who over the age of twelve can keep their mind from going there?

"Ah," breathes Evan. "A truly _intimate_ marriage."

Bellatrix's anger comes out as laughter. Enraged, drunken laughter, funny only to her and even then only because of intoxication. The sort of laughter that, for her, serves as a warning bell. "Don't even think about it, or your obituary will be front page news in the Daily Prophet."

"Wonder why we don't have children, do you?"

Rodolphus's eyes go blank again, as if something in him has died in the temporary way that Lord Voldemort would so love to know the secret of, or more likely, some suppressed neurosis has risen to the surface. There's a lot of emotion grinding and sucking away inside his skull, all of a sudden; a deep well of hate and rage and despair that's always there has erupted, and Bellatrix is the stick of dynamite that made it all happen. He's not sure what he thinks, where the sudden sense of dull, cold loneliness came from, why he suddenly wants to turn his trustworthy Avada Kedavra on himself or maybe on his loving wife.

All he knows is that he really needs another damn drink.

"So," Evan says, picking up on the sudden undercurrent in the room, "that's the third reason to call Avery a failure."

"What are the other two?" Edmund plays along, uncomfortably, as if he wasn't given the script, which he of course wasn't.

"He's the archetypical rich, incompetent twit," blond, blue-eyed, weak-chinned Evan says, waving his slender, lily-white hand around foppishly, blithe and innocent and quite aware that he fits the stereotype even more than his old schoolmate (there's a _reason_ it exists, after all), "with no reason to live except mindless pleasure."

"Like Rodolphus," Bellatrix snickers.

"Not in the least bit like Rodolphus," Evan contradicts cheerfully. Rodolphus glares at him anyway, redirecting his anger onto a target unlikely to Cruciate him after the party. Evan ignores it.

"What's the second reason?" Rodolphus mutters, trying his damnedest to be civil, unwilling to argue with a man who, after all, he likes enough to risk him talking during the opera.

"Sylvia Mulciber," says Evan simply.

Edmund groans. "Second child. Ugly as hell. Pathetic witch. He can't even get a good one."

"Neither could I," says Bellatrix. Rodolphus calmly gets up from his seat, walks over to the love of his life, grasps her shoulder, ignores the heel of her boot digging into his ankle as he drags her across the room, and sits down again holding her on his lap. She squirms for a few seconds, but playfully; she's more amused by his show of defiance than truly threatened.

"Do you have any parchment?" Evan asks cheerfully. "We should write these down." Rodolphus wordlessly Summons a sheet and unceremoniously shoves it into his hand. He smiles, taking a quill out of his pocket. "Ink?"

"Cut your wrists," Bellatrix advises him. "Oh, it might be a bit hard to read, but it would get the point across, would it not?"

Rodolphus laughs again, stroking her gleaming hair as if he can't believe that she's his. Which, of course, she isn't, but he doesn't need to know that. "He faints at the sight of blood."

"Exactly," she says.

"Oh, yeah, kill Wilkes, watch him scream."

Edmund retreats to the other side of the sofa.

"You're not touching me."

Bellatrix reaches over to him, childishly evil, poking him hard in the shoulder. "Touch, touch. Having a breakdown yet?" He glares at her.

Evan is blissfully oblivious to all of this. "Number one...he's a twit..."

A new voice. Male, probably, high and quavering and rather pissed off. Here comes the peanut gallery. "Do you _always_ babble while you write?"

The door creaks open, slowly, by inches; Rabastan's thin enough that he abandons the attempt to push it open and slips through the gap. He's all in white, looking for all the world like an insane bride--the kind that stabs the bridegroom just before the "I do"s and proceeds to send the day down into history books as the bloodiest massacre in centuries. Rabastan's green eyes are halfway out of his skull, and the facial tics have chosen the moment to manifest themselves in full force. Not an imposing figure.

"Rabastan." Rodolphus turns to face his brother, smiling pleasantly enough, completely aware of Rabastan's anger and utterly unwilling to fight back. "Sit down. Have a drink."

"I need to talk to you," Rabastan spits. There's something oddly feline in his posture. Maybe it's the shape of his shoulders, half-melted from inbreeding and all the medication. The medication may well be what kept him from asking these questions for so long.

He's almost proud that he's survived three days without taking any. His anger is overwrought, warping his brilliant little mind into something useless, and he's proud of it.

Machismo is a harsh mistress, is she not?

"No," Rodolphus replies calmly, "you don't. SPINKS!"

"Have a drink, Master, or two--"

"Get away from me!" Rabastan draws his wand, trembling, pointing it at the center of Rodolphus's broad chest. Rodolphus rolls his eyes; he's used to the melodrama. Rabastan's seventeen; everything's a tragedy. He's almost missed the deeper implications of this event and everything that led up to it, mainly because he's high on his own rage, his maybe-not-so-spoiled-as-he-thinks innocence. His eyes flicker around the room, landing on each face in turn, savoring hating them all. "I can't believe," he hisses, excited and almost happy for once, but still, of course, dutifully angry, "I can't believe I'm wasting my time talking to you."

"But you are," Bellatrix informs him, without a trace of irony or sympathy. She remembers when _she_ was seventeen. Oh, what a riot it was. "Finished our homework, have we?"

And there it goes again. He hates this woman, sees her as the Oppressor (no more radical politics for you, Rabastan, though you do fit in well in this climate), and Rodolphus as the innocent victim (there's a word for that, isn't there? Collateral Damage? No, that doesn't sound right--you couldn't write a paper on it.), though it's Rodolphus's hand around his throat as often as not. She's the Antichrist, the embodiment of all evil, amoral, vicious, uninterested in his rambling political theories except as something to mock. And she knows just what will set him off. Like most teenagers, he hates being in any way understood.

He prepared the dramatic gesture on the way downstairs. It's a good one, he thinks, in the back of his mind, where the melodrama hasn't quite soaked in but the instinctive love of it has. Especially after the unnecessary 'homework' comment. Such a cheap shot, but he should really be thanking her, she did set it up well...

He shoves the diary into their faces.

Rodolphus's eyes bulge, and he grabs for the thing. Rabastan, weak as he is, is younger and faster, and he sidesteps his brother's hand, albeit in a flashy way that was no doubt stolen from a cheap penny-dreadful.

"Bastard," Rodolphus snarls, "give that back!" He gets to his feet, dumping Bellatrix on the floor (she clambers back onto the couch, watching eagerly, expecting bloodshed), and lunges again, stopping inches away from little Rabastan. Rabastan ducks, suddenly and acutely aware that he has no idea what the hell he's doing. He randomly swipes at his brother's face, misses badly, overbalances, lands painfully on his hands and knees, and crawls under the table, fumbling for his wand, the diary tucked under his arm. He can't resist taunting a bit:

"What are you going to do, Roddy, lift the table off me?"

Maybe he gave Rodolphus the idea. Rodolphus is brighter than Rabastan gives him credit for: maybe he came up with it on his own. All Rabastan knows is that he's suddenly horribly vulnerable, flattened against the floorboards with nowhere to run to, with his wand still in his pocket, and a brittle, easily snapped spine showing through his skin.

Rabastan considers himself an atheist. It's almost a requirement for effeminate ivory-tower intellectuals in this day and age.

There are no atheists in foxholes.

He prays anyway. A quick, simple prayer. Silent, because his newfound religious faith wouldn't stand up to Bellatrix. "Oh God, don't look too harshly on me, I made a mistake, I believe in you, save my soul please. Amen."

God is merciful. Rodolphus is merciful. Rabastan will live another day, to the profound regret of many.

Bellatrix sweeps over to him, kneels down, and picks up the diary. And she touches him. Not in the way I imagine you're expecting, from that sentence--she runs her hand through his hair, touching his cheekbone, then the nape of his neck. Rodolphus notices, but he stays quiet, and the rage in his eyes is stifled so quickly that perhaps she doesn't even notice. Rabastan notices, and he feels it, and it's the most disgusting thing he's ever felt, worse than the sickness, worse than the medications, worse than the pathetic ineffectual Healers' hands on him, inside him, worse even than the nausea and later the vomiting, brought on by witnessing dear Bellatrix and Rodolphus in their crimes against nature. He wants to lash out, to scream, to scream the deep primal scream that has been building inside him for weeks, to blast away all his fear and rage and the touch of her filthy, pretty hands. But that would be suicide.

He knows he's a coward. It makes him feel even worse. There are tears coming to his eyes, like vinegar on his sensitive skin, dripping onto his glasses and drying there, and his hair is matted to his face with sweat and tears. He can feel his face melting like wax, dripping, warm and wet and toxic, dripping all over him and holding him in place.

She removes her hands. The whole episode, threat, contact, violation and repulsion, took less than two seconds. And yes, it was the effect she intended to produce. Hate her if you want to, but you have to admire her talent.

He listens as Bellatrix reads the diary out loud, sneering at the sappy parts ("Oh, he's a romantic, is he? I never knew--" when she knew damn well that he was), laughing at the angry and unfunny parts, some parts in a sardonic monotone, others in a bad imitation of Rodolphus's deep, rough voice and sensual Scottish accent, and still others in her own voice. He cringes every time Bellatrix reads something deeply personal, and he wonders if Rodolphus is going to kill him, or just burst into tears (which might be worse), and he wonders if he can go back in time and fling himself down the stairs and break every bone in his stupid, traitorous, _pretty-boy_ body. And then he wishes that he didn't have a conscience, and then he wonders what Rodolphus is thinking and why he married the bitch (using the word, even in his head, is so pointlessly satisfying), and then he wants to give Rodolphus a hug and whisper that everything will be all right, and almost immediately he's disgusted with himself, and the whole inner monologue is pointless because he can still ihear/i Bellatrix reading. And he's so scared that he figures, "what the hell, she'll kill me, won't she?", and he stands up, ignoring Evan and Edmund's disapproving whispers, ignoring everything but the bitch that he's just made it his mission to take down.

Not that his resolve will last past the first knife-stroke.

"Miss Bellatrix," he rasps, cringing inwardly at the formality, "I know what you are." She puts a hand on her hip, rolling her eyes, her lips warped with disdain. He's certain that if he attacks now, she'll slit his throat. Spurred on by this comforting thought, he continues: "You're a Death Eater."

"You think I don't know?" she jeers.

"Yeah," Edmund chimes in, "it'll be on the front page of the Daily Prophet. _'Bellatrix Lestrange Is Death Eater. No One Surprised.'_"

"_I_ might be," says Evan.

Rabastan senses he's losing his audience, and he pushes harder, knowing as he does so that they never took him seriously in the first place. "Even now, you're planning my death, aren't you? And," he adds, gesturing flamboyantly to his pale face, the ribs that look more like Venetian blinds than anything else, "you could kill me. I know you could kill me."

"Perhaps we will," she says, smirking. "Do you want to die?"

Evan and Edmund hold their breaths. Rodolphus watches, silent, unmoving.

"Do you want to kill me?" Rabastan counters, unable to resist theatrics. "Am I collateral damage? A strategic objective?"

"Only to make Rodolphus cry," she snickers, not taking it seriously at all. He hates her even more for it. "But there are other ways. So maybe I won't. We'll all watch you waste away--"

"So I am to die for your sick pleasure?" he challenges, too far gone to care about the consequences.

She only smiles.

"Oh, yes. Isn't it perverse, Rabbykins? Little _girls_ suffering for Miss Bellatrix?"

And he charges at her, flailing, shrieking like a banshee, with no idea what he's going to do, knowing only that he wants to hurt her as badly as he possibly can. It's not a sane, rational motive, knowing as he does that she could cut him into ribbons if there were anything more than bone to cut. Blood excites her. Violence pleases her. He's playing right into her hands.

What happens next is a bit unclear to all parties. I'll say only that it was horrifically gory and thankfully rather quick and then move on.

He's tied to a chair when it ends. He doesn't seem to be too badly hurt, although possibly it's all internal, because the blood has to come from somewhere, doesn't it? He's not bruised yet--it happened too fast for them to have had a chance to form. His arms are tied behind his back, his hands on his shoulders; the position was a deliberately-chosen one on Bellatrix's part, and the searing pain quite intentional.

It doesn't even begin to compare to the damage to his fragile teenage ego.

Sympathize with him. Yes, that's an order. Look how violated he is. He's your hero for a little while. No, you aren't allowed to complain.

They're laughing at him. They're _all_ laughing at him. Even Rodolphus, who Rabastan thought was his friend for one brief moment in his life, shortly after birth. Evan is tittering, hand coyly over his mouth, and Edmund beside him is guffawing, happy as he's ever been. Poor Rabastan. Rodolphus and Bellatrix's laughter is blending together in his ears (hahahahahahahaha), and the sound of it makes him want to scream. He can't move his hands. What happened to his hands? Are they even still attached to his wrists? (He wishes he could turn his head to look, but he **will not look away from her**.) They think he's _funny_.

"Comfortable?" Rodolphus deadpans. Rabastan doesn't just glare at him. Oh, no. _Far_ too prosaic for such a one as him. He tries heroically to convey, with one look, the depths of his rage and alienation. "You betrayed me," say his defiant, no-longer-quite-so-sparkly green eyes. Rodolphus either ignores it, or he doesn't pick up on it at all.

"Yes, actually," Rabastan breathes. He makes an attempt to say it bravely, but it comes out wrong and just sounds foolish. He will not give him the damn satisfaction. He's Rabastan Lestrange, Hero of the Damned Ages. "Except for my shoulders. My shoulders rather hurt, a little. Oh God. I'm in pain. In pain, you bastards." His bravado all comes crashing down at once. He's in _pain_, dammit. "My shoulders aren't working so well. I can't move them at all."

"Does he always gibber this much?" Evan inquires, innocently enough except for the circumstances.

"On a good day, he does," says Bellatrix. "Insanity," she adds, gesturing to Rodolphus with a smirk, "it runs in the family, doesn't it, dear?"

"Guess he's illegitimate," says Rodolphus with an amused smile. "Always suspected."

"And I thought your mother was so saintly," observes Edmund. "Everyone's got an angel for a mum until proven otherwise."

Rabastan doesn't really care one way or the other about the slights on his dear deceased parents. He couldn't. There's not enough room left in his brilliant little skull.

"You're breaking my arms. Oh, God, you're breaking my arms. Let me go and I won't tell anyone. I can't. You'd hurt me. Let me go."

"Why not save time?" she asks. "If we release you now--" (General laughter.) "--I'll just have to tie you up again."

"Yes," he gasps, "you probably will."

"So many, many reasons you deserve it."

"I'm a bastard," he says, spontaneously. "A bitch. Yes. A bitch. A girly-boy. Right, a pansy." He feels better already.

"Are you confessing?" she asks.

"Shut up. A pretty boy. In a dress and rouge and lipstick."

"And Barty, and Regulus? What are they?"

"My friends," he mutters. How, he wonders, does she know about them? When the Sickle drops, it takes most of his viscera with it. What does she know? What does she _know_?

"Your _boyfriends_? My cousin, your lover? Oh," she shrieks, hammy as can be, "the shame of it! In my own family!"

"Shut up," he says, a little louder. Evan and Edmund stage-whisper "ooo" in unison. They _have_ to have practiced that. "That's completely disgusting." And it is, isn't it? The very _thought_. Homosexuality. Too dirty for even the Death Eaters to touch at twenty feet. Really, Bellatrix, your priorities are quite strange. (Though Rabastan is too easy a target.) "Not Regulus, never Regulus."

"And Barty?" she prods.

Rabastan takes a few deep breaths before selling out.

"I couldn't tell you for sure, you know that, right? But he's a mama's boy, I know that much." Another "ooo" from Evan and Edmund. "A pansy. Obsessed with me, almost, yes, maybe you're right, Bellatrix," he concludes, waves of imaginary heat wafting over his face.

"What a devoted friend you are," she stage-whispers. He winces; he didn't mean to say that much. Or anything. She got to him. And he broke down. He's a cowardly little bastard and he's going to burn in hell. "What else can you tell me?"

There's none of the "I'll hate myself in the morning" nonsense here. He hates himself now. It's not much fun, being bound to a chair and interrogated by the one person you are absolutely certain will rip your lungs out when she gets bored. His vocal chords seem to have been desiccated by some helpful, omnipotent being, and he can't talk to save his life.

She mock-pouts after a second, putting one hand on her hip and tossing her hair. Her wand is pressed to his chest.

"Tell him what he wants to know, Bella," Rodolphus growls from the corner, leaning forward for a better view. "About us."

"He already knows, doesn't he?" she asks softly, eyes fixed on Rabastan's twitching face. He assumes, as she pulls up her left sleeve, that she's going to strike to kill next, and the tender look in her eyes as she regards something on her forearm that he can't see just puzzles him.

"Ah," Evan breathes. "The Mark. You're going to show him the Mark."

"What--what are you talking about?" gasps Rabastan. "Bellatrix! Miss Bellatrix! I don't know! I don't understand, I thought I did, let me go, please, I won't hurt you, I'm not dangerous, can we work something out?"

"You're _babbling_," she snarls, holding out her arm for him to see.

At first it doesn't make any sense to him. Is that a skull? Some kind of fish? Just a shadow? And when it resolves itself into the Dark Mark, he recoils, or tries to.

"He's like Avery," Edmund comments, watching him squirm.

Rabastan leans forward again, as much as he can in his bonds, his glasses sliding off the end of his nose and landing on his lap. Everything goes fuzzy around him, sliding into a dark netherworld of faded colors, and the only thing that stands out with any detail is her arm. Questions, he has so many questions, and unfortunately he isn't quite inbred enough to have more than one mouth to ask them with. (Memo: needs another generation.) So he just looks for a minute, not sure whether to be appalled or intrigued, with a strange, slippery feeling coating his insides and making him sick. Finally, an important and worthwhile question fights its way through the morass:

"Did it hurt?"

"That's what you want to know!" she hoots. "Of all the questions! Oh, Rabastan, you're as sick as _he_" (gesturing to Rodolphus, who playfully bows)"is!"

"Masochistic," Rodolphus agrees. "Look at his EYES."

He's right. Rabastan's eyes can hardly be called normal at the best of times, twitching and darting and dancing in their sockets. Now they're positively freakish. Scalpel eyes, as if Beckett (remember him? Rest in peace)'s eyes were carefully saved to be transplanted into Rabastan's face at a suitably dramatic moment. Bright, painfully so, in both senses, and focused to a tiny point. You can see, in those eyes, the Rabastan who will be dragged off, kicking and screaming, to Azkaban, in just a few short years. There's still a bit of growing up and going mad to do, but the seeds of that twisted young man's character are all there.

What is evil? Stupid men, clever men, philosophers and drunken pubgoers, they've all debated the question endlessly over the years. Under the influence, as Bellatrix the undoubtedly depraved now is, they've written papers and books and speeches based around a few clever guesses. Good men have died when they get it wrong. Is it cowardice? Hatred? A certain moral depravity? Doing things the philosophers don't happen to like? Whatever the definition, Rabastan fits it, or he will. The Dark Arts _fascinate_ him. Look at his eyes.

"It did hurt, didn't it?" he presses.

Her eyelids flicker, and she runs a finger around the Mark--not close enough to touch it and no doubt bring the Dark Lord to kill them all, but enough to make her skin tingle with anticipation. She laughs, hitting Rabastan across the face with her left hand, and smirking at his confusion.

"No," she rasps, offended, "it could never hurt."

"It _does_," scoffs Edmund. "You're mad."

"Don't call my wife mad," Rodolphus warns. Rabastan feels like choking him. The sight of the Mark brought strength back to him--he _knows_ now. He knows just what kind of power she holds in her hand, just which master she serves, and yes, there's oh so much for him to fear.

"Are you with the Dark Lord, too?" he asks, feeling exhilarated, relieved, and yet oddly respectful. He doesn't know what he'll feel if Rodolphus says 'yes'.

Rodolphus inclines his head slightly.

"Yes."

Another happy little burst of righteous hatred. He knows how he's supposed to feel about Death Eaters. Now he has to hate the man who fights off his worst nightmares. Oh, well. Lost his whole family in one go.

"You're dead to me now," he gasps, happily.

"Glad to hear it," says Evan.

"Shut up," Rabastan half-shrieks, turning slightly in his bonds to face the man he knows only as 'Rodolphus's idiot schoolmate Rosier'. Evan recoils at the sight, the pretty-boy and the maniac coexisting happily in one body; Rodolphus never mentioned _this_ side of the young man. "And you? Are you a Death Eater?"

"He doesn't deserve the name." Bellatrix turns to face Evan slightly, and then glowers at him when he fails to react appropriately, whatever that might be. "But yes. He is."

"We all are," Evan chirps.

Rabastan looks simply delighted, smirking broadly with his eyes half-closed and his gaunt face flooded with happy color. The tension in the room has long since burned itself out, packed up and left.

"Going to report us to the Ministry?" Edmund wonders aloud, shifting in his seat for a better look at Rabastan's infamous eyes.

Rabastan slumps back into his chair, unwillingly reminded of the downside of such power. He looks tired now, but he's still smirking bravely. "I couldn't do that. You'd kill me. Coffee?" he adds dreamily.

Rodolphus laughs shortly. "No more damn caffeine for _you_." He leans forward, stroking his brother's shoulder: one of his hands neatly covers the joint and the bones around it, and he's reminded once again how _tiny_ Rabastan is. "You need to eat something," he adds. "SPINKS!"

And Spinks is there, bobbing around Bellatrix's feet (Bellatrix tries to kick the elf, but overbalances and quickly sits down to cover her error), holding a dinner tray: she anticipated Rodolphus's request, knowing Master Rodolphus perhaps better than he knows himself. What a good little slave. Confused at first by the ropes holding Rabastan to the chair and the bruises forming on his face and neck, she instead plucks his glasses off his lap and slides them onto his nose. He cringes as she does so, humiliated but unable to resist as her brown fingers tickle his pointed chin. When will they learn that he is not a _child_?

Somehow, Bellatrix picks up on it. Perhaps her Legilimency is more subtle even than Snape's. Maybe Rabastan's just bad at hiding his expressions.

"Will we have to spoon-feed you?" she inquires, mock-innocently. Rabastan reminds himself that she's a Death Eater to prevent himself from, with superhuman effort, dragging the chair across the floor and biting her to death.

Rodolphus, perhaps unaware of the irony, takes the tray himself and gently feeds Rabastan a forkful of salmon. It's good fish, but he can't swallow, not with all of them watching him. It seems he's become the evening's primary entertainment, better than _La Boheme_, better even than yet another recitation of Avery's character flaws. Even gentle (to his friends) Evan has turned predatory, excited, as if he's sucking sustenance from Rabastan's unhinged blithering.

"Are you going to eat the asparagus?" he inquires, probably with genuine innocence.

Rabastan can't answer, but Rodolphus saves him again.

"Yeah, he should, he's too skinny." Rabastan wants to point out the build of Rodolphus's dear wife, but fear and ennui stop him. Besides, he has a mouthful of half-chewed fish, rapidly going warm and soggy on his tongue as he fails to swallow. (For you, dear readers.) "Go ahead." Rodolphus presses hard on his brother's throat, and Rabastan chokes.

"Is that how you plan to silence him?" Bellatrix asks.

Rodolphus stares blankly at her. "Yeah." Bellatrix points her wand at him, eyebrows raised, and he draws his own. She holds the position for a moment before lowering her arm, smiling disdainfully, with only a hint of warmth and affection for the man she did, after all, choose to marry. What can I say? It's a game they play, and it's better than anyone else, save the Dark Lord, gets from her.

Rabastan can't eat much more. He takes a few more bites as they're offered, listening, horribly unnerved, to the silence of his dining companions. Maybe it's low blood sugar, but it's dawning on him once more that he does not like this situation. Everyone's focused on him, watching him eat (the comment on his figure killed his appetite quickly); he isn't being ignored or outwardly mocked, which earlier he might have considered a blessing, but Mr. and Mrs. Lestrange and their best mates are hardly the people he dreamed of in his fantasies of being center of attention. His brother is kind to him, if rough, and Evan at least isn't hostile, but even if he knew about the political interests he and Edmund shared, he still wouldn't like him, and Bellatrix...

He chokes down a bite of asparagus (is that a Chinese sauce Spinks put on it? How strange), just to get it out of his mouth, and looks up at her again. She smirks down at him, secure in her superiority.

"What, you don't like vegetables?"

His scathing comment withers in his brain and disappears. "No."

"They're good for you," she sneers. "You don't want to grow up thin and weak, do you?" Her hand brushes his cheekbone. "Perhaps it's too late..."

He has nothing left that would hurt her, even a little. He still has questions, though, being a bright young man and the sort of neurotic who thinks of questions to ask his psychotic sister-in-law if he ever finds out that she happens to be a Death Eater.

"What do you do?" Her black eyes are slicing into his face. He takes a deep breath. "As a Death Eater. What are your aims? How do you achieve them?" He cringes inwardly--he sounds like a reporter. Bellatrix, however, seems almost impressed.

"You've done your research, haven't you?" She puts her head to one side, with an odd expression: not smirking exactly, not as hostile as before, but not a real smile, either. "What do we do," she muses. "What do we do..." She straightens up, smirking again, her face twisted in a strangely beautiful way. "We kill, Rabastan. For the glory of the Dark Lord."

"And that helps you achieve...whatever you're trying to do?" he asks, skeptically (but not too much).

"Oh, but it does." She flicks her wand hand as if holding a whip, and a trail of sparks flies from the tip of her wand. The air sizzles, Rabastan can smell smoke, as the sparks form into a whip, a long chain held together by her force of will. She could easily take off his head with it. If she wanted to.

She swings it around, wildly, barely missing hitting the candelabra and setting the room alight. Not that she'd care. It swings, seeming almost uncontrolled by reason, in Evan's direction, and he ducks; she doesn't particularly care who she hits. "The Mudbloods fear us, as rightly they should, Rabastan." Her voice rises in pitch and her breath quickens. Her eyes are as bright as the sparks, and as she swings the whip in Rabastan's direction, the ropes keeping him from dodging, she laughs again. "They don't know who'll die next! We can do anything!"

"Anything," Rodolphus echoes, watching her intently, the whip reflected in his eyes. He makes no move to help Rabastan as the whip descends, coming closer and closer, and--

Pain. Sudden, electrifying pain, fading in intensity almost instantly but leaving a burning aftershock behind.

He screams. He wants to fling himself onto the floor and thrash against it until the pain is numbed as his fried skin is scraped away. He wants fresh, wholesome night air, blowing across his skin; if he could just get to the window...but he's tied up. With flaming ropes, as it happens.

"Dammit!" makes its way out of his mouth, accompanied by spit and blood. He doesn't even think to look at Bellatrix, which considering her expression is probably the most intelligent move. And Rodolphus isn't helping.

He barely feels it at first when Evan pulls out his wand and sends ribbons of water against the flames, forcing them back against his skin and steaming them away into nothing. Presumably there's more pain, but he's too pissed off to notice. Only when Rodolphus kneels down beside him, one hand on the back of his neck and the other pulling his burnt clothes off, does he begin to relax. Half-naked, burnt, cut, and bruised, and humiliated beyond words...

"I hate you," he whimpers.

Rodolphus leans down so that his lips are touching Rabastan's ear and whispers two words.

"Screw you."

Bellatrix screams with laughter. Nobody else, unsurprisingly, finds it very funny at all.

Personally, I think it was a bit fitting.

The party more or less breaks up after that. They finish the letter to Avery, weaving a few jinxes into the ink, hoping maliciously that they won't see him for a week. Evan makes some excuses, adding that he'll send the letter anonymously when he gets home, and Rodolphus sees him to the door, roughly wishing him a good night and completely failing to mention his wife's behavior at all. Edmund leaves shortly afterwards, and Spinks sees him off with many bursts of "Mr. Wilkes is welcome any time Mr. Wilkes wishes!" and "Spinks hopes Mr. Wilkes enjoyed himself?" Finally, Rodolphus, Bellatrix, and the unfortunate Rabastan are left in the parlor together. Rabastan is lying on the floor, twitching and gasping, blood (blood? What the hell _happened_ to him?) bubbling from his many injuries. Bellatrix is standing over him, watching, satisfied at last. Rodolphus comes up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"Bella."

"Do you feel sorry for him?" She turns to face him, shrugging off his hands and staring into his eyes for some sign of deep intelligence.

Rodolphus contemplates his answer before he speaks. "A little. Don't think he deserved it."

She disregards that. "It felt so good..." she whispers, half to herself.

"Bella." He smiles more warmly. He can't stay angry with her; her sadism was half the reason for his attraction in the first place. They work well together, don't they? "You're such a bitch," he growls, affectionately, pulling her into his arms.

For once, she doesn't pull away, though she makes no move to increase the intimacy. "I know," she derides him gently. "It's quite intentional, I assure you."

"For the Dark Lord?"

"Of course," she snaps, pulling away a bit, though her hand remains on his shoulder. She can't _believe_, sometimes, that he hasn't figured it out. "Everything I do is for the Dark Lord."

"Even beating up my brother?"

She just laughs. He rolls his eyes, but kisses her anyway. She pulls away completely this time, annoyed, but manages to refrain from violence.

"I'll take him up to bed."

"Good. Don't be too kind to him."

On the floor, Rabastan moans. He sounds offended, even furious, but possibly that's just disgust at the display of intimacy. Bellatrix laughs again.

"Remember, we have a meeting with Dolohov in the morning."

"Yeah," he mutters, staring down at Rabastan. "And his accent."

"I forbid you to interpret it yourself," she scolds him playfully. "Need I mention your abysmal N.E.W--"

Rodolphus laughs shortly, scoops Rabastan into his arms, and walks out, leaving Bellatrix staring at the door.

There's a spot of blood on the rug.

Surreptitiously, she leans down, touches it, and she's off into her bloody mental fairyland again, reliving the moment she slashed into Rabastan's bony chest.

Rodolphus waits outside the door while Rabastan changes into his pajamas. Even without trying, he can hear a never-ending stream of whimpers, gasps of pain and shock, and moans. He'll take Rabastan into St. Mungo's after the meeting with Dolohov, he decides. It's probably time to teach the boy how to hide scars and fresh injuries, something Rodolphus had to learn for himself over five years of marriage: he has some medicine somewhere, Rabastan can borrrow some of that. It's a hazard, he decided long ago, of living with Bellatrix, but one he's more than willing to tolerate, most of the time. He suppressed his hot temper for her (mostly), figuring that she wouldn't want him to fight back on those unfortunate occasions, although come to think of it, it seemed to amuse her when and if he did...ah well. He'll think about it later.

Rabastan, meanwhile, is utterly and completely horrified by the extent of the injuries. He has a mirror in his room, for some reason, and his natural aversion to it has never been greater. He tries not to look at his naked body as he passes the mirror, and he's taken his glasses off to ensure that he can't see any of the gory detail as he searches for his pajamas. This means that he's tripped twice (he's never been graceful), and he supposes that there are now more bruises. Lovely. He hasn't been living in the townhouse for long--probably Rodolphus will sell it and buy one in Edinburgh when he realizes that Scotland has opera too--and he hasn't had time to accustom himself to this room enough to remember where he keeps his clothes, or to get over his fear of the dark, or to assemble a handy collection of potions and bandages for when he needs something more than his routine medicine. He had one back in Scotland, an entire cabinet full of miscellaneous medicinal items, left over from when he still wanted to be a Healer, before his fears of blood and disease reached their peak. He would torture and kill both Regulus and Barty, in cold blood, to have them now.

He certainly isn't going to go to Rodolphus, or to Bellatrix. That would be stupid and weak and cowardly and sissyish, as if he couldn't handle it on his own. It would also probably get him maimed.

Sighing, he reaches for his pajamas.

Rodolphus comes in a few minutes before he should have, and is rewarded with a bloodcurdling yelp as Rabastan tries to cover his bare chest.

"Crap." He stops dead, staring. "It's that bad?" I'll spare you the gory details. Let's just say that it looks much, much worse without clothes, even after Rabastan carefully rinsed and cleaned the wounds. He's tied a few scraps of fabric that look suspiciously like pieces of one of his old shirts around the worst of the gashes (where on earth did those come from? Was it when Bellatrix attacked him the first time, before she tied him up?), but that only serves to point them out. It is indeed that bad.

"Don't look at me, Roddy," Rabastan mutters, calming down, his bony arms crossed over his rib cage. "I don't want you to see this." He tries to look stoic, but it comes out wrong, and instead he looks resentful and depressed. Oddly accurate, no?

Rodolphus crosses the room in one stride, pinning his baby brother against his broad chest, breathing hard. iNow/i he's angry with Bellatrix. At long last. "Rab."

His brother, his beloved baby brother, tries to smile. "Please don't call me that."

"Rab," Rodolphus repeats dully. "Rabastan. She hurt you."

"Obviously. Look, I'm fine. Let go of me. Please. I appreciate your concern. But I don't need it. I'm fine, aren't I?" Hollow laughter. "I'm not hurt, am I?" He shudders, and Rodolphus releases him. "I'm very tired," he whispers. "Please let me go to bed."

"You're going to St.-effing-Mungo's," Rodolphus growls, looking suddenly just as menacing as Bellatrix (Rabastan recoils, terrified), "I don't care what you say about it."

He scoops Rabastan up in one movement, storms down to the front door without looking back, and then suddenly has second thoughts.

"Bella," he roars, not quite managing to keep his rage out of his voice, "I'm taking him to the hospital! We'll talk when I get back!" And he slams the door behind him, Disapparating as soon as they're out of the house.

Bellatrix gets up quietly, her husband's words bouncing around her skull.

"Well," she says, just as quietly, "we _will_ talk when you get home."

She goes up to Rabastan's room, kicking Spinks out of the way as she goes, piles his beloved books in the hall, draws her wand, and hisses one word:

"_Incendio_."

---

**I know, this chapter took far too long to finish.**

**Anyway, reviewers will receive the rest of the asparagus.**


	6. Chapter 6: Do Not Shout In The Hospital

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and wouldn't want to. I don't own Lucius Malfoy, which is probably a good thing, because I don't want the bugger in my house. Rodolphus Lestrange is currently living in my basement, but we've had a few disputes about who owns who, and all that I can say with any certainty is that if J. K. Rowling doesn't take her creation back soon, there will be trouble.**

**A/N: Arise, my faithful readers, and conquer the planet in the name of Slytherite and Harry Potter badfic.**

**Warnings: Pervasive language (alert readers will no doubt be about to point out that this technically means "there are words throughout the story", to which I can only say: it's just a fic, you should really just relax, at which point you will no doubt take away my MST3K for good.), stupid jokes in the A/N, the RETURN OF LUCIUS MALFOY!**

---

They put Rabastan under six hours ago. He's been here ever since. And Rodolphus, meeting with Dolohov be damned, has been watching over him like the world's worst guardian angel.

If you don't notice the bleeding, or the way his face recently went a color abnormal even for him, he might be sleeping. Everyone in a hospital, regardless of how close they are to death, or indeed if they're on a gurney on the way to the morgue, looks like they're sleeping. If they're sick enough to be in the hospital, they don't look pretty when they sleep, so what's the difference?

In fact, Rodolphus notes, which is in itself a symptom of his own lack of sleep, Rabastan only appears to be asleep to those lucky wizards who have _never seen him asleep_. He looks peaceful, and almost sweet, like the heroine of some Victorian trash novel. No doubt he's 'too good for this sinful Earth', lying there in the hospital bed, a pallid, obscenely thin, evil little angel of a man, with his hair spread around his face and unfortunately hiding none of it. He's smiling; Rodolphus checks his pulse for the third time in the last few minutes.

They'd bandaged him up, the Healers, taking him where Rodolphus couldn't see him and stripping his clothes off (Rodolphus barely suppressed a shudder) and putting their hands all over his poor abused body. They'd smeared him with potions that they swore would work, no doubt the same potions that Rodolphus could have given him at home, and they'd done their best to fix him up again. "There'll be scars," they'd said.

"Well," he'd wanted to respond, and still thinks he should have, "what the hell d'you know, then? Can't you fix him? Aren't you _educated_?" He'd given his dear baby brother to these...people (barely human, he'd always thought), probably all Mudbloods, and they'd pawed him and ogled him and screwed him a thousand ways, and it was all Rodolphus's fault.

"The damage is magically caused," they'd said when he'd failed to respond. "We can't truly repair--"

"I pay my damn taxes like anyone else," he'd said, thinking of Healer Beckett (rest in pieces). "And you can't fix him?"

"Please be civil, Mr. Lestrange, or we cannot allow you to remain," they'd said.

"He's my brother, I'll stay with him if I want to!" Rodolphus had snarled, moving to shield dear Rabastan from the tender ministries of the trained professionals. It'd probably been his sheer size and strength that had intimidated them, he'd decided later: the bastards just don't understand family feeling.

It had not occurred to him that Healer Beckett, for one, had been married with three children.

So he stayed, ignoring the Healers bobbing in and out of the room (Rodolphus might be belligerent and mildly intoxicated, but he's a rich man and he'd bullied and bribed them into giving Rabastan a private room; St. Mungo's, of course, is chronically underfunded, as are all worthy public enterprises), staring for hours on end at his pretty dying brother, ignoring them even when a handsome young Healer had informed him, smiling, "He'll recover." He hasn't moved from his brother's bedside in hours. His arms feel strangely light without eighty pounds of sarcastic bone nestled against his chest; a couple of times he's leaned over and stroked Rabastan's cheekbone or surreptitiously confirmed signs of life or just held him, mesmerized by his frail body, silently fretting over his thinness and shuddering pleasurably as one of his brother's bones happened to poke into his body. He's considered climbing into the bed and lying next to him, social norms be damned; the first few times, he stopped himself by registering dimly that he happens to be well over three times Rabastan's size and extremely likely to crush him to death. The fourth time, he was stopped when a Healer happened to come in at that precise moment (he swears they're watching him; whether his newfound sense of persecution comes out of anger or a sense of obligation to his paranoid young heir presumptive, he can't say). So he just watches now. The most interesting thing that's happened in the past hour is that Rabastan twitched a little and rolled over, probably dreaming about some delightful activity involving a nameless, creeping horror, a couple of Dementors, that pert young female Healer with the curly blonde hair, and unabashed smutty behavior.

Rodolphus _really_ wants a cigarette.

Then Lucius Malfoy comes in.

"Ah, Rodolphus. Have you slept?"

Rodolphus _knows_ that voice. He doesn't turn around, although he does sit up a little straighter and flick his hair out of his face. The question offends him a bit: "Think I could?" he growls, gesturing to Rabastan. "With him half-dead?"

"I was told that it was not serious--"

"You're wrong." Something occurs to him, for once. "You were told?"

"Bellatrix saw fit to inform me," Lucius informs him with a hint of a sneer that Rodolphus doesn't see. "Apparently you had an...appointment...with Antonin Dolohov that you saw fit to miss--"

"I missed it?" Rodolphus stares at the bedsheets. Rabastan makes a strange little noise that probably signals the imminent implosion of his lungs.

"I expect you were simply _dying _to go? So that only something _important_" (Lucius draws the word out more than any sane conversationalist would allow) "could have kept you away?"

"He's dying," Rodolphus mutters, refusing to dignify Lucius's question with a proper response. He doesn't look up or turn around; Lucius has to come to him, walking over to Rabastan's bedside and placing a companionable hand on Rodolphus's shoulder. Rodolphus, perhaps uncharacteristically, lets it stay there. "Look at him."

"Pity," says Lucius, meaning it. The room is in the center of the building, several hallways away from any windows to shed natural, healthy daylight on the scene, and the candlelight does nothing for Rabastan's sickening complexion. Lucius doesn't know the boy well (they've met only a few times before, never for long), but Rabastan has a reputation as brilliant (aren't they all? Everyone wishes that their son, their nephew, their second cousin's roommate, will be the one to lift the Wizarding world out of its current torpor and elegant decay), and Lucius would be vaguely sorry, if unsurprised, to hear of his tragic death. He's politer than Rodolphus, if no kinder or more moral, and he doesn't say what he's really thinking: "He would be a loss. You wouldn't be." Instead, he opts for a noncommittal "I believe he's been hospitalized before?"

"A few times. There's always something wrong with him--born weak."

I suppose you're wondering by now what afflicts him. The symptoms are bleak: the occasional spate of vomiting, convulsions, hallucinations, fever and chills, shooting pain, loss of muscle control, and unconsciousness, for a few random hours a month--longer ones, ones that last for weeks, are optional but hardly uncommon. Rabastan thinks, when he's conscious, that they're brought on by stress or emotional outbursts. The obvious hole in this theory is that there's _always_ something wrong, always something stressful and madness-causing, and he rides an emotional roller-coaster as a fact of life; if his theory was entirely true, he'd be lucky to be conscious three hours a month. In between the fits, he quietly wastes away, the disease sucking nutrients from his bones and leaving his blood bitter and unwholesome. It acts almost intelligently, sweeping his body and causing one mild symptom after another: the coughing has been omnipresent ever since whatever-it-is got into his lungs, he has headaches every three days, like clockwork, and he's lucky if he can eat half his dinner without nausea. And all of that is characteristic of the _less_ severe stretches of terminal illness.

You don't want to hear what the really bad years were like. Rodolphus got very used to carrying him around and giving him emergency medical care. He graduated from Hogwarts only by virtue of being highly intelligent and very able to make up for all the days of class he spent in the hospital wing, or even St. Mungo's, and even then Barty and Regulus (even people like Rabastan have best friends) had to take dictation when he was too weak to hold a pen. It's a miracle he's alive. The Healers don't know what to make of it.

Back to the story.

Lucius nods. "So I heard. A chronic illness. Unfortunate, but allow me to reassure you: hardly uncommon. What exactly does he--"

"Don't know. They said they'd never seen it before." Rodolphus turns slightly to face Lucius, including him by implication in his sense of injustice. Why, he mentally demands to know, can't they find what's wrong with him? Why can't they fix it? Are they just going to let him _die_? "They said," he adds, outraged that Lucius isn't responding with the appropriate drama, "that it might be some kind of Dark magic, like I did something to him or-or something. Like I'd hurt him. Or Bellatrix." His temper discharges as he says his wife's name; Lucius has seen this side of his brother-in-law before, and steps back hurriedly. "The _bastards_" (Lucius winces) "don't know Bellatrix. Or me. I'd never hurt him, you know that, Lucius, I'd _die_ for him--they don't care! Bastards don't understand! I raised him after Grandfather died--he cried every night, and I _was there holding his bloody hand_!" Lucius nods again, hoping to convey that his interest is at best vague. Unnoticed by either of them, Rabastan shudders, nearly chokes, and coughs once or twice before lapsing back into silence.

Rodolphus, unsurprisingly, doesn't notice. "They don't know anything about it, do they? What the hell do they know? 'Oh, he's sick, his brother must be trying to murder him! We're educated as hell and we don't know what's wrong with him so we're going to blame someone!' You know about politics, Lucius--" He stares wildly at Lucius, the force of his suppressed rage tumbling out of his eyes like a tsunami and forcing Lucius back another few steps even as he tries to stay calm and composed; feel sorry for Lucius, dear readers, he's under a sudden, badly planned, quite probably insane emotional assault. "You know about politics!" Rodolphus throws his head back dramatically, laughing humorlessly and wildly, in a creepy imitation of Bellatrix's most deranged mannerisms. You pick it up, I suppose, when you live with her. "Tell me, Lucius, I pay my taxes like anyone else: they give the money to the Healers, am I right?"

"Partially," Lucius says dryly. "The government is a complex and multi-faceted thing, Rodolphus--"

"Screw that!" Rodolphus half-shouts. No doubt the Healers hear him, but they've already given up on persuading him of the virtues of civility and indoor voices, and no one comes running. "Screw that! They give it to the Healers and they don't do a damned thing with it! Rabastan's been in the hospital half his life and they istill/i don't know what's wrong with him! I'm going to watch him die, aren't I? Rabastan's dying and I don't--I can't--"

And that's when he starts crying. His rant dissolves into gasps and torrential sobs; if Bellatrix had been here, she would have found endless clever and vicious things to say about him. Aristocrats, even Dark Ages types like Rodolphus, aren't supposed to cry. In _public_, too. Shocking.

Lucius watches him, unsure at first what to do. Seeing his tough, badass, manly brother-in-law cry is a new, unsettling experience, a bit like watching a gnome try to do magic. He's embarrassed, though loath to show it, baffled by such a blatant breach of propriety committed by a man who, for all his faults, was after all raised the same way that Lucius was and born to the same background. He can't _imagine_ crying in public. Those who can't shut down their emotions, something Lucius has always been very, very good at, don't last in the dog-eat-dog world of balls and bribery and lazy afternoons playing chess with your worst political rival. He doesn't think he's cried since he was _six_. Shocking.

The Lestranges have always been a bit of an embarrassment to polite society. It's something in the blood. They just can't control themselves. (No wonder Bellatrix married into the family. They _have _to be breeding lunatics on purpose, and she was the craziest potential mother they could dig up. The joke, obviously, is on them.) So far from the Malfoys and the _real _aristocrats.

"Rodolphus," Lucius snaps. "Control yourself." Rodolphus, face buried in his hands, tries to ignore him, but it's just too much of an insult to overlook. A man has to have his pride, you know.

He really did try not to lose control. Lucius is family. Lucius is cultured and sophisticated and **everything **that Rodolphus is not: smirking bastard thinks he's superior. Thinks his family's better than Rodolphus's family.

Well, Rodolphus knows that he's wrong.

All the same, physical contact was going a little too far.

Lucius reacts to the punch a second too late; he does the dramatic thing, grabbing Rodolphus's wrist and trying to defy the laws of physics by bringing the oncoming pain to a screeching halt. Of course, he fails; the only discernible effect is that his arm gets folded painfully against his collarbone. Rodolphus is standing now, with his back to Rabastan, having crossed the room in a single stride. And he's too close. Lucius's senses are screaming for him to back away. But he can't. That wouldn't be...proper, shall we say?

It's a complicated, Baroque, draconian code of unwritten laws that they follow to the letter. Well, perhaps not Rodolphus. Lucius, however...

"Get _away _from me. You have no right to--"

"Hell no," Rodolphus snarls. He's a little shorter than Lucius, but heavier and broader shouldered--Lucius is hardly as anemic as he looks, but it still wouldn't be a fair fight. "Get out of his room. Leave Rabastan alone. Leave my family alone." He shoves Lucius harder with every word, punctuating with grunts and snarls. Lucius shudders, wrenching his wrist away, staring down his refined nose at the man he _longs _to physically harm.

Rodolphus, unaccountably, grins. He hasn't slept in far too long.

"I," Lucius hisses, "have no interest in provoking a scandal. The Lestranges are all too good at that on their own."

Rodolphus Lestrange's laugh has always sounded aggressive. "Don't talk about my family."

"There are rumours."

"Yeah?" He laughs again, unsmiling. "The ones about Bella again? Tell me, Lucius, which _bastard _said that about her? I'll kill--"

"That," says Lucius, "is exactly what I mean."

Behind them, at a suitably dramatic moment, Rabastan unceremoniously regains consciousness.

He'd started to awaken the moment Rodolphus first raised his voice. Probably that's why the Healers forbid shouting in the wards. So distressing to the patients. Of course, they have a policy of non-interference--the kind of people who can pay for private rooms don't often care, per se, about the patients. Rodolphus is a rare exception, at least in theory: in practice, the brute tends to exacerbate his brother's problems, completely by accident. Even the theoretical concern is unusual, though. Mum's dying of dragon pox? What a _lovely _time to argue about her will! Right there in the room, too--a nice little shock for her system to send her on her merry way. After all, you're paying your lawyer enough every month as it is; why drag her life out longer than you need to? So there you are.

At first it hadn't really been _consciousness_-consciousness, though. He'd been sober, alive and insane and off the medication, for three days before he was brought into the hospital, and the potions they gave him shocked the hell out of his system. Sometimes he gets a high off the potions, sometimes they drag him down into the murky torpor of depression, but it's rarely as bad as it was now.

The first thing he'd been aware of had been pain. There's _always _pain. Emotional, physical, intellectual. He had a rough night. But it's not the mental pain that bothers him at first. Not in his, shall I say...primitive state. Do shellfish angst?

The second thing that he became aware of was that someone was yelling. It hurt. It made his head hurt worse and he didn't like that. He wanted the yelling to go away. It wouldn't. He didn't know where he was or why the rough sheets were scraping against his skin. This wasn't his bed. He didn't want to see where he was. He kept his eyes tightly closed. It didn't work, but it was a nice gesture.

The third thing he realized was that he was probably about to die. His heartbeats--he could feel them, that was a good sign--seemed farther apart than normal. They were more neatly spaced, and the pain...there were little gasps of stabbing pain denoting the halfway marks between them. He continued in that state for a little while. The ominous feeling just got worse. It hurt. Everything hurt. Being Rabastan Lestrange, that was pain enough in itself. And now he was going to die.

By this point, he was almost conscious enough to have rational thoughts. Past tense. This is a flashback, readers. He's been restored to his hysterical consciousness now.

"Gentlemen," he tries to gasp. He manages to make some noise, anyway. That's an achievement. His ribs are tearing away from his lungs, he knows it.

Lucius and Rodolphus turn to face him.

"He spoke," Lucius observes.

Rodolphus looks hopeful for a second at most. "He didn't."

All the air goes out of Rabastan's incandescent hopes.

"You didn't hear him?"

"He didn't say anything," Rodolphus growls. For a moment he really hoped...

"It might well be delirium," Lucius muses, not listening. "I really doubt that he meant to say anything."

"He hasn't moved."

Rabastan, frustrated, tries again. Why won't they hear him? "Listen to me!" It comes out a long, whispery breath. He can feel heat rushing into his face.

"There, he spoke again."

Rodolphus looks away, eyes closed. Poor Rodolphus. His powers of observation are mediocre at best. Rabastan's even opened his eyes (it was such a struggle, yes, you just don't _understand_) to watch them.

"He's dying."

Rabastan tries again. And again.

"Charming," Lucius comments after a while. "I have business to attend to. Good day to you. And you," he adds, addressing Rabastan directly.

And, after wasting all this time, he leaves.

Rodolphus stares at the door.

"Bastard," he mutters, turning back to Rabastan.

And after all this time, Rabastan can't muster the strength to sit up.

Five minutes later, the good Healers come in, dribble some potion between his protesting lips, and the upshot of it all is that Rabastan doesn't wake up for four days.

---

**Well, there you are.**

**This chapter was originally much gorier.**


	7. Chapter 7: The Boys and the Poison

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I wanted to, but I was outbid on eBay.**

**A/N: I apologize for the lack of updates; as I believe I've said before, my computer is a sentient, sadistic entity that feeds off my screams of impotent rage. Also, it fell apart.**

**Then I went on vacation, turned fourteen, came home to be confronted with a massive pile of homework, and was promptly dragged across the country on my mother's business trip. So it goes.**

**Warnings: Swearing, sexual references, drug references, potentially disturbing injuries/illness, blood, further narratorial lunacy, mental illness, insane rants, blasphemous insane rants, disturbing dream sequence, terrible rock music, Avery's girlfriend is an Auror bitch**

**---**

Testosterone is one of the many wonderful substances produced by the human body that, for reasons yet to be determined, is extremely toxic in high amounts.

It is, in large part, responsible for the male sex drive, puberty, and all those other things that give teenage boys the ability to reproduce, while simultaneously ensuring that they will never get to do so. Mother Nature thinks she's got a wicked sense of humor, and it doesn't occur to anyone to disagree, lest they end up like Rabastan Lestrange, bleeding their guts out into the pity pot, inconveniencing everybody, and severely lacking in the decency required to just die already.

Avery, too, can be blamed for his current state of inconvenient disintegration. The poor sod forgot the cardinal rule of Death Eater-dom: _never _piss off Bellatrix Lestrange, lest she kill you. Or not kill you. That might be worse, because if you die, they'll at least have the decency to bury you in a deep, dark, scary hole where you'll be eaten, slowly and painfully, by worms while Evan Rosier and Edmund Wilkes, six feet above your sorry resting place, debate the best way to dig you up so that they can laugh at you. It's a fitting fate for Avery, isn't it? So I suppose that I can take consolation in the fact that, though Avery remains alive for the express purpose of making us wish that he didn't, he's currently bitching his head off in St. Mungo's, while the Healers work overtime to sew his head (and other assorted body parts--if you know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, double entendres free for the asking) back on before anyone notices that Avery seems to function better without it.

And Avery hasn't even got _friends_.

Rabastan has friends. I believe I've mentioned them before, as accessories to the crime of being a crime against nature. The straight men. The good boys. Regulus Black and Barty Crouch. (Junior. Any mention of Barty Crouch Senior is strictly _verboten_ among the trio, which of course doesn't stop him, in his bastardly bastardliness, from being one of their favorite topics of conversation. Ah, the wonders of teenage life.) A blond and a tragic victim of the lack of a good noun for black-haired men. 'Raven' doesn't quite seem to cut it. Regulus, for now, and I make no promises about later, does not say 'nevermore'.

Let's meet them, shall we?

It's five in the morning. Does Mr. Crouch know where his son is?  
He's up before the alarm clock. It's an annoying habit of his, one that he can't seem to break. Just once in his life, Barty Crouch would like to oversleep. But he can't. Not when he's so _conscientious_, worried about his O.W.L.s and about his poor mum and, for a good five days now, about Rabastan. His close friends are beginning to consider the dark circles under his eyes (getting a suntan takes time, something he doesn't have, and sunshine, something that he doesn't quite understand) an intrinsic part of his face.  
He notices them as he straightens his robes and tidies his hair, strand by individual strand. The average blond man has huge numbers of strands of hair. Barty gets up early for a reason.  
His mother notices them when he comes downstairs for breakfast. It's still dark, and Theodosia Crouch's eyes started to go years ago. I don't know how the hell she notices, apart from the unhealthy fixation she has on her only son. It's the 'Walburga Black' syndrome, otherwise known as the 'Why in the hell does every single pureblood heir have a f(insert vowel of choice)cking Oedipus complex?' syndrome. Barty and his mum are not exempt. Did I make you feel dirty? Glad to hear it.

"Good morning, Mother."  
"Oh, _Barty_," she whimpers, exactly the way she whimpered to his father during the happy event of Barty Junior's conception--it's her usual way of saying "Hello, son who has in every way completely failed to disappoint me! What shall you and your amazing talent achieve today? I know, let's make your cold, uncaring father proud! And first, let's have some lovely tasty breakfast that the house-elf was nice enough to whip up for you!"  
Barty has a few mouthfuls of breakfast. It's porridge. He hates porridge. He has a sneaking suspicion, however, that his mother will not let him go until he has some lovely tasty breakfast. And the look in her faded blue eyes when he tries to get up not only proves him right, but sutures his skinny arse to the chair while he halfheartedly plays with his food.

By the time he finally bids her a hasty goodbye ("I couldn't live with myself if you were killed by Death Eaters, Barty!"), it's almost five-thirty. The sun hasn't quite condescended to rise, and though he bumps into a few malevolently placed end tables on the way up to the attic, broomstick in hand, he welcomes the darkness. No, that's not a metaphor; he's not 'hiding his guilt' when he hasn't even done anything to be ashamed of. It's simple truth. Have you, Muggles, ever stopped to appreciate exactly how irritating it is to fly during sunrise? You stop to appreciate the beauty of the sun, and then you fall off your broom. The Wizarding population is small enough already.

Like many urban Wizarding houses, the Crouch family domicile possesses a rather handy feature that has helped the Wizarding world to keep its Statute-of-Secrecy violations down to about, oh, one per week. Their attic is larger than it, to an unenlightened eye, needs to be. And it has a trapdoor out onto the roof. Standing outside, now, staring into the night, Barty fails to appreciate exactly how well-designed this feature is. The Muggles next door can't see him, because of the way the roof slopes. He can't see the ground, and the roofs stretch out around him in all directions, like bizarre little hills. And even when the sun isn't quite up, as long as dawn is breaking, he has enough light to fly. He kicks off.  
Screw Floo powder. "This," he thinks, "is the _best_ way to travel." London slides underneath him like a smear of multicolored paint gone psychotic, the rooftops mushrooms poking up through the toxic brown tiled leaf litter of the mixed metaphor. He's going fifty, sixty miles an hour, not much by Muggle standards, but Muggle standards look a bit more reckless when you're a hundred feet in the air and sitting on a stick. He flies almost vertically for the first forty feet up, tilting the broomstick forward only enough so as to preclude falling off; he shoots up into the air like the cap from an unwisely shaken bottle of butterbeer. The world turns sideways, then vomits him into the sky.  
There, he stabilizes, feeling the hairs settle on the back of his neck. He checks his watch before his compass: he has time to kill before St. Mungo's is open for business. And he decides, now that he's away from his parents and able to contemplate such a thing, to relax and enjoy it.

Sadly, he stays on his broom.

He drifts a bit lower in the sky, watching the world. The sky looks like his mother's eyes, a soapy, elegantly aged blue-gray. Like blue marble, or old china plates, or the color of his nursery walls. He likes that color. It makes him feel welcome. Almost as if there's an unassumingly hospitable maternal tit for him to suck. And there she is, on the horizon, rising up to meet him.

The dawn isn't yet unbearable, not before the sun rises in earnest, and he watches, hovering in the sky, and feeling like an insignificant little speck in contrast to the grand majesty of astronomical events that do not give a shit about him. The sun's rising, slowly, turning the sky from the blue of Theodosia Crouch's eyes to the yellow-blond of her son's increasingly mussed hair. The wind is blowing, fresh and sterile with industrial pollutants. People are waking up in London underneath him, and even though he's too far up to hear their voices, he can damn well hear the sound of their cars. And that annoys him.

"People," Barty thinks, "are such idiots." They've ruined his beautiful, Oedipal sunrise.

He kicks his broom back into action and heads for the ground.

Regulus Black, meanwhile, has decided to go by Floo powder. He gets to sleep in more that way, and there's less risk of being seen. (Unless some Muggle lunatic has gotten into a Wizarding house and is sitting there, tossing Floo powder into the fire, waiting for glimpses of wizards spinning through the flames on their way to destinations unknown. But really, who would do that?) And, most importantly, it allows time for a big, dysfunctional family breakfast. Quality time at 12 Grimmauld Place.

Sirius still lives next door. The lone disadvantage to being Regulus Black is...Sirius Black. Regulus, despite his shock and horror at the prospect of Sirius inheriting the family money, can't help but be a little relieved at times that one day, he will be forced out of the nest to make his own way in the world, the younger and better son's lot in life, and he will no longer have to deal with _dear_ Sirius. Did you know that eagles have two chicks? When the younger chick hatches, the older one bullies it to death.  
Regulus is, as yet, unaware that he will shortly become the sole heir to the family fortune.  
He is painfully aware that Sirius, whatever his redeeming virtues (not that any of the Blacks can see them, abusive family that they are), would make an utterly appalling head of the family.

The dining room will be abandoned altogether when Walburga goes the way of the rest of her relatives, in the distant future of 1985. Even now, it seems a little odd--not empty by any means, just...different--without the notorious Black sisters. It's been three years, and Regulus still can't get used to the new family dynamic. Cygnus and Druella are sitting as far away from each other as possible, Cygnus with his sister Walburga and Druella sucking up to Orion. And Sirius and Regulus, in complete ignorance or perhaps gleeful acceptance of the law of the eagles, are seated together.

Regulus does his best to ignore Sirius throughout breakfast, but it's getting harder. Sometimes (and this is his dirty little secret) he makes plans to ask Bellatrix, the next time he sees her, to do Sirius in.

He's glad to leave. His parents are fine, there's nothing _at all_ wrong with his parents, really, but Auntie Druella is frankly an embarrassment, and Uncle Cygnus is either feeble or mad, and Sirius...he'd rather not think about Sirius, never mind that he just did. Breakfast is one of the worst times of the day, because everyone has to pretend to like each other, and even in a big house like 12 Grimmauld Place, there's no getting away.

Walburga and Orion insist upon seeing him off ("Make your father proud, Regulus!"), and, out of the corner of his eye as he steps into the fireplace, he can see Druella finishing her letter to Albert Avery, and Cygnus trying not to see.

He gets out at St. Mungo's with as much dignity as he can muster (there's a _reason_ that, with the next remodeling, St. Mungo's will dispense with the fireplaces), using his Quidditch skills to their full extent--why else would his parents have been so proud when he made the Slytherin team? He doesn't fall on his face, anyway. I can't imagine why not. It must be the excellent reflexes born of his worthless pure blood.

Barty's already there, standing near the front desk with a _don't-mind-me-I'll-just-wait-forever-shall-I?_ expression marring his not-very-handsome face. He's cradling something that does not look to Regulus, who does not have sole command of the point of view and, moreover, has never heard of such things, like a large chrome fire extinguisher. (Think 'cheap Muggle coffee emporium'.) He sees Regulus immediately:

"Where have you _been_?"

"Sorry," says Regulus, who can't help but be amused by Barty's exasperation. "I couldn't get away." He takes a closer look at the dark circles: they may well have outmaneuvered the freckles in the battle for dominance of Barty's face. "How early did you get up?"

"Five."

Regulus laughs. Barty is _such_ a riot sometimes. He's his father's son, through and through, whether or not he has anything to say about a matter that genetics, reproductive biology, and the possible paternal involvement of a teenaged Ludo Bagman have already decided for him.

Sadly enough, there's a long line at the front desk already. At nine in the morning. They say magic has made wizards stupider; it's clearly made them more proficient at killing each other in various ridiculous ways. (Teapot brain, anyone? No? Shame.) I suppose I shouldn't laugh at sickness and death. It's tasteless.

Sickness and death, specifically the sickness and near-death of Rabastan Virgil Lestrange, are funny.

Barty and Regulus get in line. Barty gets a few odd looks from the wizards around him--_whoever heard of carrying a big metal thing around in a hospital?_--and retaliates by staring. Regulus has never seen anything so terrifying in his life, up to and including Bellatrix and her serial murders of small helpless animals, but possibly barring aging Aunt Druella, tramp extraordinaire. The horror. Being Regulus, he doesn't look away. Being the son of Theodosia Crouch, Barty gives up on the stare after a few seconds and looks away, embarrassed. Being a cynical bastard, I mourn the demise of Barty's character development moment. Oh...wait, he's always been a spineless, neurotic little twit. Never mind.

At least one wizard, the appallingly named Horklephilstein W. Jenkins, a former Slytherin in his mid-fifties, can't help but wonder: "Doesn't that kid look like Barty Crouch?" The obvious irony is completely lost upon him, and our heroes will never see him again. So it goes.

They wait. It's a long wait, so they have a lot of time in which to feel awkward and nervous. It's worse for Regulus, because he knows that the scion of the Noble and Most Ancient and Decrepit House of Black isn't supposed to feel, or be, awkward and nervous. Barty is quite aware that he's not supposed to feel anything of the sort, and bitterly compares himself to his father and, conversely, to his feeble little squeak of a mother. And then he feels bad about insulting his mother. What can I say? It passes the time.

He leans over.

"I apologize for snapping at you," he mutters into Regulus's ear, fully aware of how lame it sounds.

"Apology accepted."

"I know I got up too early."

"_I_ know you got up too early." Regulus condescends to smile. So does Barty. "You were worried about Rabastan, weren't you?"

Barty hesitates, but the part of him that hasn't yet gone batshit insane points out that he's carrying an oversized coffee dispenser, attracting stares everywhere he goes, for the sake of Rabastan and his caffeine addiction. "He's my friend."

"Mine too," says Regulus, and that makes Barty feel a little less self-conscious and Regulus feel as if he's done a good deed today.

"That's why we're here, isn't it?"

"You never know," says Regulus. "We could be here to kill him."

"One doesn't preclude the other," says Barty, and they have a good laugh, and the desk clerk, who was already subjected to this nonsense when Rodolphus and Bellatrix were here, ducks under the desk and takes a nip from a flask of firewhisky.

"Ah, _politics_."

"Small wonder your father--" Regulus stops too late. Barty, to his credit, refrains from ripping Regulus's head off, settling for a smile that indicates that all activities related to the removal of Regulus Arcturus Black's head will take place in private, at a somewhat later date.

"Small wonder my father _what_, Regulus?"

"Nothing," says Regulus. "Where did you get that?"

When they, with the assistance of at least three beleaguered Healers, manage to find their way to Rabastan's room--those darn private rooms are just so hard to find, even if you are rich and pureblooded--he doesn't immediately notice them come in.

"Good Lord, Rabastan," snaps Regulus, much louder than he would have ordinarily, "turn the music down."

Rabastan rolls over in bed, snapping at least seven out of thirteen ribs from the effort, and grapples with the radio on his bedside table. The music rises suddenly to a shriek (Barty yelps and covers his ears), before the singer suffers a sudden, fatal heart attack and the music cuts out. Rabastan glares, suspiciously and from an odd angle, at his erstwhile friends. Something in his annoyed squint prompts Regulus to hand him his glasses from the bedside table.

Rabastan stares at the glasses in his hand for a second, shrieks, and flings them across the room.

"She wants! But I won't! No! Won't let her! She said it, not me!"

Regulus and Barty exchange glances.

"That's what I said, I swear to God! No, it isn't right! All wrong! Think I am a man, my boys, or might I be a god? What? What did you say? What did _I_ say? That's an insult, Admiral!"

Barty takes a few tentative steps into the hall, not taking his eyes off Rabastan. Rabastan's hand takes the scenic route on the way to clawing at his eyes, knocking the wizard wireless off the table. His facial muscles do a brief, uncoordinated tango, and he laughs.

"Fuck me like an animal!"

Regulus, always the cool-headed one in an emergency, takes the big metal thing from Barty and pours 'Rabies' a cup of coffee.

---

There will be no coffee for Avery. Avery doesn't even get a private room, because Avery is a vicious, cowardly, murdering bastard, and he doesn't even have the excuse of being mad. He's a bad person, kids. Rosier and Wilkes are also bad people. But I like them and call them Evan and Edmund, because they're slightly better looking.

My hatred of Avery is shallow, but it isn't undeserved.

Even now, he's bitching at his best friends.

"...but I suppose I shouldn't expect any better from you."

Evan looks hurt, but then smiles sadly. Edmund, who, like Rodolphus, is capable of one facial expression at the best of times, rolls his eyes for the seventeenth time so far in the impromptu Death Eater meeting. Avery gives them both an exaggerated look of disgust, but it doesn't work, because he's ugly.

"No," says Edmund, and shows Avery _exactly_ how to give him an exaggerated look of disgust. Behind him, another patient, a penguin-faced man wearing a bandage choker (you _know_ who this is), surreptitiously turns his head to watch.

"Isn't that a little harsh?" asks Evan, feigning surprise.

"Not for Avery, it's not," says Edmund, who has never liked Avery and would hate for you to get the wrong impression.

"Right," Avery pouts, "I get the point. You hate me."

"Yep," says Edmund. "Finally, he catches on."

"Don't think I'm stupid, Wilkes," says Avery.

"We don't _think_ you're stupid," says Evan innocently. The eavesdropper has to bite down on his lip to keep from laughing. It's funny because it's Avery.

"I don't have time for this," says Avery. "Tell me why you're here or piss off."

"Yeah, you've got other things to do," says Edmund.

"Hospital beds to lie in," adds Evan. "Windows to stare out of."

"Healers to seduce."

"You're mocking me," says Avery.

"We wouldn't," says Evan. "We're your friends."

The eavesdropper attempts to turn his snicker into a sudden cough.

"Yeah. Right." Avery looks so wounded that even Edmund has to laugh.

"We're your _best_ friends in the whole wide world, Jonathan."

"That's just lovely," mutters Avery. "Now do me a favor and go away."

"We can't go away," says Edmund. "That would be stupid."

"We haven't even told you why we're here," says Evan.

"So tell me," says Avery testily, "and _then_ piss off."

The eavesdropper, Gulliver Beckett (remember him, dear readers?), hopelessly nosy, sixty-two, recovering from a nasty throat injury, self-inflicted under the influence of the Imperius Curse, and a serious threat to the upper classes, watches as Evan pulls the letter out of his robes. Evan hands it to Avery with a flourish that suggests that he's doing it all for Chekhov's gun's benefit. Avery breaks the seal, noting as he does so that Edmund didn't even bother, when he read it, to make the new seal look like the original, and reads:

_Esteemed Mr. Avery,_

_In regards to the request you made of me three Saturdays previously to today, I must regretfully inform you that I have considered your request and I have also considered my decision_--

"Agatha," says Avery in disgust. "Can't she learn to write a proper letter?"

"Keep reading," says Evan. "It gets better."

_--and I now have a response to give you, as I hope that the esteemed Mr. Rosier and Mr. Wilkes will do. Or not. One never _quite_ knows where she stands with Mr. Rosier and Mr. Wilkes._

_Sit down, if you are not already doing so; I have been informed that, at the time of this writing, you are in hospital, and thus very likely confined to your bed. And in considerable pain. But I digress. This will come as something of a shock to your sensibilities. I know that I should not like to receive this news, were it your unhappy duty to impart it to me. However, on consideration, and the advice of my dear friend, the elder Mr. Lestrange, whose advice I can unfortunately not repeat for reasons of profanity, and of course my dear aunt Mrs. Edmund Wilkes (_nee _Evelyn Burke), whose exact words to me were: "Tell the little fool that he's out of line, Agatha, we can't have him doing this to you", I have decided that, for societal and personal reasons, and also reasons relating to Miss Agatha Jugson as an individual, and as a member of society, and for reasons relating to your (rumored) impending marriage to Sylvia Mulciber, I have found myself forced to utterly reject your offer._

_In short, I find myself unhappily forced to turn down your proposal, to me, of marriage to yourself. I cannot marry you, Mr. Avery._

"Two-timer," says Edmund, watching Avery's expression.

"Not," says Evan, "that you'd want Avery for a nephew, in any case."

_I know that, as you read this sorry missive, thoughts must be going through your head. Thoughts of me. I am aware, Mr. Avery, that we have never been bosom friends. Even at Hogwarts, you had your friends, if ever you could have referred to them as friends, which may or may not be dubious (you know them better than I!), and I had mine, though mostly they were Mr. Lestrange. After Hogwarts, we (I admit) went our separate ways; I did nothing very important, and you did even less. And in your idleness, you attracted the love, or avarice, or morbid, masochistic fascination, of Miss Mulciber. I do not know her well, of course, having met her on exactly zero separate occasions, none of them for very long, or indeed any time at all. I know her only by reputation. But it seems that Miss Mulciber is not a woman to scorn, or take lightly. Even though your betrothal (can it still be called a betrothal at twenty-five? I was never sure) to Miss Mulciber has not yet been made official, or announced, or even to the best of my knowledge happened at all, it would still be of dire social and moral consequence to reject her at this juncture._

_Besides, she is a second child, as are you. I am the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jugson, both of whom are long since deceased (I suspect murder, as does Mr. Lestrange, who should know). In other words, I am a more desirable marital commodity than yourself, and Agatha has her eye on a certain Mr. Black (in a few short years! Hee hee) for me._

_Or, possibly, if that does not work out (he might die. They often do), Mr. Lestrange, himself married, has a younger brother, who is not desirable from a purely political perspective, but whom I like better than yourself, because he does not go about _proposing _to innocent women, and indeed (if Mr. Lestrange is to believed--and you know how he is!), is probably gay._

_Sincerely and lovingly,_

_Always yours,_

_the humble Miss Agatha Jugson_

The parchment makes a lovely noise as Avery wads it up and throws it at the wall.

"Lunatic woman," he moans.

"Even Miss Mulciber might be a better choice," agrees Evan. "By the way, what's this I hear about morbid, masochistic fascination?"

"Well," says Edmund, smirking despite himself, "think about it. He's unmarried at twenty-five, a mere foot soldier in" (he catches himself, remembering where he is) "the most important political movement of the twentieth century, complacent and stupid, using life when it suits him and otherwise not bothering, and in the hospital with his fingernails dropping off...I'd say he was a fairly good match for her, all things considered."

"Not high on the list of marital prospects for Miss Jugson, then?" asks Evan, playing along.

"I'd say he was just behind, oh, say, Albus Dumbledore?"

"You've made your point," says Avery, who, unpleasant as he may be, does not deserve to find out, _after_ his friends have, that the woman he proposed to behind his girlfriend's back thinks he's worth, at maximum, one slightly-batty letter. There goes plan A. Avery thinks for a minute--did he ever have a plan B?

What was he going to do with plan A after the little bint accepted him, anyway?

In plan-making capacity, Jonathan Albert Avery ranks somewhere behind Bartemius Crouch Jr. on a bad day.

"You're right," says Evan. "I apologize. We have made our point. Your life is barely worth living, isn't it?"

"If you're trying to talk me into suicide," growls Avery, "I have plenty of things to live for."

"Name five," says Edmund. "We'll wait."

---

He catches her in the hallway during lunch break. That, in itself, is odd.  
"The old sod must have forgotten his lunch," thinks Sylvia. "He's never out of the office." The joke among the Aurors is that their hard-hearted, cold-blooded boss is a vampire, but Sylvia doesn't believe it. Vampires aren't inherently evil.

Sylvia, however, is.

"Miss Mulciber? A word, if you please?"

"Yes, Mr. Crouch," she recites dutifully, wondering who sold her out and how she can corner them alone in the break room sometime and teach the little bastard a little lesson.

In some ways, Barty Crouch and Sylvia Mulciber are a lot alike. The only difference, aside from age and gender, is conscience: Sylvia hasn't got one. And she doesn't actually care, _per se_, about the job.

As it turns out, Sylvia is a bit disappointed when she walks out of Mr. Crouch's office. All he wanted to know about was Jonathan. And he didn't ask her to kill anyone.

---

"Your girlfriend is an Auror bitch," says Edmund, somewhat later.

"Shut up," says Avery. "What else do you want? You gave me the letter."

"I mean it," says Edmund.

"He means it," says Evan.

"I don't believe you," says Avery. "That's ridiculous."

"I mean it," says Edmund. "Would I lie to you?"

"You would," says Evan.

"Shut up," says Avery. "That goes for you, too."

Round and round they go, where they'll stop, nobody knows.

Gulliver Beckett, behind them, would like to restate his assessment of Rodolphus and Bellatrix, and all their merry band:

"They're serial killers."

Thank you, Mr. Beckett. We knew that already.

---

By the time they get a Healer back into the room, Rabastan has calmed down considerably. To start with, he's no longer shrieking nonsense and throwing things. That will do for now: there's still room for improvement, but Rabastan's inadvertent lethality would have gone down by fifty percent, if anyone had cared to test it.

"Sometimes they do that," says Healer Worfle. "We've been having problems with this one."

"I can see that," mutters Barty, whose freckles have gone as white as the rest of him.

Worfle nods. "You say you're his friends." From the bed, Rabastan watches them suspiciously; he's turned the radio back on, to the great sorrow of all present.

"We are," says Regulus stiffly, gripping Barty's shoulder--Barty has severe emotional problems and can be unpredictable at the best of times. This is because he has daddy issues.

"Does your friend Rabastan have any previous history of psychotic episodes?"

"Only when he doesn't get his coffee," says Barty, but Regulus has other ideas.  
"Actually, he does. He has a history...Sometimes he would do this at school, with little to no warning. One never quite gets used to it. And it seems to be brought on by stress." Regulus pauses, giving the absurdly named Healer Worfle the patented Black glare. "Can I trust you not to disclose this information?"

Worfle hesitates. "Er...that is to say...that's not really my choice..."

"_Can_ I trust you?" asks Regulus, very quietly.

By all rights, this _should not work_.

Worfle sighs. "Young man, there are some things that a Healer must tell his fellows--"

Funnily enough, it does not work.

Barty leans forward, eyes wide and innocent.

"He's our friend," he whimpers. "I don't want trouble for him."

"If he is involved in any kind of illegal activity--" Worfle looks uncomfortable. So does Barty.

"I," Barty says, very quietly, "am the son of the head of the Auror office. If Rabastan is involved in illegal or life-threatening activity, I promise you, I will be the first to report him."

"Yes," sighs Worfle. "All right. Let's hear what you've got to say."

I must confess, I never thought that the ticket to making something that _should not work_ work was blond hair, an innocent face, and fortunate bloodlines.

"We think," says Barty, in the same quiet voice, "that his sister-in-law, Bellatrix Artemis Black Lestrange, was responsible for this."

Rabastan screams at the sound of the name, picks up the radio, and hurls it at Worfle's head. Propelled by the dubious power of Rabastan's withered muscles, it drops like a stone.

There is a shocked silence. There always is, for the first few seconds.

"I'm sorry about that," says Barty weakly. "I must have made a mistake. Forget I ever said that."

"I'll let it pass," says Worfle. "You were worried and looking for an explanation. It happens." And he sweeps out.

Regulus and Barty stare at each other.

Well, there goes that _absolutely correct_ hypothesis.

Rabastan breaks the silence. He's crying.

"You were right," he whispers, bony hands pressed over his face. "Yes, you were right, you were right, I hate her, I hate her." And, courtesy of his degraded tear ducts, he's crying blood.

Barty supresses his nausea just long enough to rush over and take his hand (but not before quickly wiping it clean). Rabastan jerks it away, sniffling. The blood flow briefly intensifies, then cuts out.

"I've never seen that before," thinks Regulus, trying not to vomit. "Rabastan..." he says after a while, keeping one eye very firmly on Rabastan's wand hand, in case he gets it into his head to throw something. "Are you all right?"

"Does he _look_ all right?" asks Barty angrily, turning his head to glare at Regulus. "I'm sorry, Regulus, but sometimes you just--"

"At least," snaps Regulus, relieved to have someone to yell at,"_I_ don't bring my parents into everything--"

"Oh, really, Mr. Black?"

"Funnily enough, Mr. Crouch, I--"

"Please don't fight in front of me," whispers Rabastan. "Not now."

Regulus and Barty look embarrassed. Sometimes they forget that they aren't the only people in the universe.(How the hell do solipsists make friends?)

"Sorry," says Regulus finally. "We didn't mean any of it. We were just nervous."

"I know I bring my parents into everything," mutters Barty. "I'm trying to stop."

"What would your mother think of that?" asks Regulus, and even Barty grins sheepishly. Rabastan laughs hysterically, but has to take a brief break to find a tissue and cough up a few unnecessary internal organs.

"Thank you for coming to see me, boys." He gives them a teary smile. "You really are good friends."

This is sappy.

"It was nothing," says Regulus briskly. "You would have done the same for me."

"Would I have, now?" asks Rabastan, trying to smirk. "Oh, I suppose I might have, yes. I like you, don't I? I do." More coughing.

"We're glad to hear it," says Barty brightly.

"Somewhat," says Regulus darkly.

"I do," says Rabastan. "Never doubt me, boys." Barty catches the spurt of blood from his eyes (how the hell does he do that? He's a medical mistake) with a handkerchief just in time. Rabastan winces, and his hand trembles as he touches one eye. "I don't know why that's happening," he adds. "It's new, no, it's never happened before. Sickening, isn't it?"

Regulus endeavors to wordlessly convey that he's seen worse. Barty just nods: it _is_ disgusting. "I'm cold," Rabastan adds, shuddering, "_so_ cold." He clutches at the thin blanket, pulling it up over his deformed shoulders and off his feet; he yelps, drawing his legs up to his chest and curling into the fetal position. This doesn't help. Even his knees are sharp enough to kill, and he squeaks in pain. Regulus sighs and shakes his head. Isn't Rabastan pathetic?

---

Hello, dear depraved readers. I'm the narrator, and I apologize for interrupting this scene. It's a lovely little piece of work, chock full of homoeroticism (that's what you want, isn't it?). It even has, for the stranger members of the audience, plenty of blood. Rabastan probably doesn't taste so good, and his feet are as withered as the rest of him, but there are _limits_. (If you want to be sexually attracted to a Death Eater, I'm sure Lucius or Bellatrix will be happy to oblige.)

There are more pressing matters. Several of them.

Let's start with Rabastan's brief fit of temporary insanity. I'm sure several of you will have guessed that his unnamed and ridiculous chronic disease has finally spread to his brain; his eyes are leaking blood, after all. That's a nice little theory, and I hate to have to tell you that it's completely and utterly wrong. He's always been mad. There's nothing, in itself, unusual about Rabastan's neurons firing randomly, if at all. The Lestranges have a proud tradition of 'marrying' their siblings, one that only ended last century--God knows Rodolphus and Rabastan have enough subtext. Rodolphus is, after all, batshit insane, and Rabastan is still young and pretty enough to be considered a Victorian-style mad heroine. Would that he were a woman. But I digress. Rabastan's madness is genetic, but it comes and goes, and the primary reason is stress.

Wouldn't you love to be traumatized, traumatized again, mutilated, and held prisoner in an unfamiliar room without your brother or your friends to protect you? Given drugs around the clock? And told that the things that you fear aren't real?  
And he has so many, many things to fear.

At night, Rabastan is helpless in front of everything that he knows is coming for him. He confronts his inner disorder and his twisted external reality. At night, Rabastan is raped and tortured a thousand times. And who am I to say that any of this isn't happening for real? At night, Rabastan goes mad. And personally, I think he's holding up rather well.  
Sometimes the broken things spill over into reality. He can still feel Bellatrix's hands on him. _Inside_ him. And who can blame him if she breaks something?

That's your daily dose of trauma, readers. The next important piece of information I have for you will require a little context.

And, for the record: Rabastan _appreciates _the drugs.

---

"I want you to do something for me," says Evan.

"Ask someone who cares," mumbles Avery.

"We want you to sleep with Mulciber," says Edmund. "Think you can do that?"

Avery's libido kicks into action. Mere moments later, his bullshit detector punts his libido back into a pornographic never-never land.

"What do you _really_ want?"

"Edmund just told you," chides Evan. "We want you to sleep with Miss Mulciber."

"Give me a break," says Avery, who has known Evan Rosier and Edmund Wilkes since first year, and trusts them even less than he did when they met. "That's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous it may be," says Evan, "but that is what we would like you to do."

"Is there a reason for that?" asks Avery, frowning.

"Your girlfriend," says Edmund, looking around briefly to check that they are alone (former Healer Beckett closes his eyes quickly and pretends to be dead) "is a Ministry spy."

---

Avery's girlfriend is an Auror bitch.

Rosier and Wilkes are absolutely right about that.

Avery is pathetic.

Rosier, Wilkes, and the rest of the English-speaking world are absolutely right about that, too.

---

Sylvia Mulciber isn't an unattractive woman, if you happen to be blind, deaf, and insane. She has a distinctive personality, but then, so does Bellatrix. She's pureblooded, but we all know how little that means in these politically correct days: it means a hell of a lot.

The Mulciber family is not quite as old as the Lestranges, or as distinguished as the Blacks, or as powerful as the Malfoys, but the Mulcibers do have one advantage. There are a lot of them. And in every big family, you get throwbacks.

Sylvia's parents only let her become an Auror on the condition that she would give it up if and when she got married; they didn't foresee any problems in her future in that respect. Mr. and Mrs. Mulciber knew their daughter quite well, and had long since determined that she had no troublesome ideals or beliefs. In other words, Sylvia was joining the Aurors so that she could blow things up with _authority_. This was right in all but one tiny detail, and that was rather an important detail. Sylvia Mulciber had never wanted to join the Aurors in the first place; Barty Crouch can be a bit weird about that.

She prefers not to discuss the convoluted and embarrassing chain of events that culminated in her sitting in Mr. Crouch's office being offered a job. That, she thinks, is all in the past. Everyone has a dark secret, right? She is, after all, an Auror now, with the solemn duty of killing Death Eaters, who have sexual relations with their mothers. And Avery is a Death Eater, and a motherfucker by any standards except the literal one.

It's a wonderful match. Matches _burn_ things. (Forgive me.)

"What did he want?" asks Prewett during lunch.

Sylvia shrugs. "You know Mr. Crouch."

"Yeah," says the man she knows only as Other Prewett, "and I know that he doesn't call people in for no reason."

"He's a control freak," mutters Sylvia, and she takes a bite of her sandwich. Terrible, she thinks, tomato again; the house-elves will get their arses kicked over this. "He wanted to know what I had for breakfast so he can put it down in his special loony file."

"Tell the truth," urges Other Prewett.

"No," says Sylvia firmly, wondering if Mr. Crouch would care if she jinxed whatshisname into oblivion.

Prewett sighs and puts a hand to his forehead. "We've been through this before, Mulciber. Your hostility is really--"

"Whatever," says Sylvia. "Gordon or Fabio or whichever one you are. You know I don't give a crap what my" (air quotes) "hostility is, or how you feel about it."

Other Prewett, the more sensitive of the two brothers, gets up and moves back to his own cubicle. Prewett gives her one last lingering look.

"I was just curious, Mulciber," he says, and joins his brother. Sylvia registers dimly that he took his lunch with him, mentally swears (she's given up on her own sandwich), and returns to the task of seducing Jonathan Avery.

By the way, their names are Gideon and Fabian.

Gideon and Fabian.

Make an _effort_, Sylvia.

Bartemius, who is unclear on the basic purpose of the lunch hour, pauses briefly in his rounds to observe Sylvia. He isn't entirely sure what he thinks about her; she's eager, certainly, almost as bloodthirsty as he is, but that, he thinks, is probably not enough to make up for a lack of basic talent. He rather wishes that he hadn't been forced to hire Miss Mulciber, but he had been left with no choice when her predecessor inconveniently dropped dead.

---

Politics is a dirty business.

Yes, Barty, there _is_ a very real risk of going insane.

---

"I'm still not convinced," Barty mutters, "that you're okay."

Rabastan tries to smile, but something goes horribly wrong. "You're so kind. You've always been so kind. Concerned about me. Isn't that lovely? Haha." The corner of his mouth twitches. "I'm fine," he breathes, reaching up to put a hand on Barty's shoulder. "I'm fine, I swear, I can cope."

"Can you?" asks Regulus sharply.

Rabastan takes a brief break to work out the facial muscles involved in smiling, but it still doesn't quite work. Maybe it's the eyes. "You're right," he mumbles, "I can't. I'm pathetic."

"Don't say that," says Barty, looking pained.

"I _am_ in the hospital," Rabastan reminds him. "I'm a crippled pansy who can't talk to his friends for five seconds without crying." Inevitably, this brings a fresh shower of blood. Regulus dabs it off, making very sure not to touch it with his hand. Rabastan would laugh if his lungs hadn't collapsed. "It isn't contagious, is it? No. It's just me." He touches the bandages, running a thin finger over his pigeon chest, checking to make sure that all of his ribs are still where they're supposed to be. "You're better off without me."

"Keep saying that and it might come true," says Regulus. Barty glares at him with a force that suggests that evolution is Lamarckian after all. The Crouches are bourgeois, but not quite upper-class: sometimes Barty just doesn't understand the way Regulus and Rabastan were raised, where snide remarks and coldness are signs of good breeding; then again, sometimes Regulus and Rabastan don't understand Barty's psychotic devotion to rules and regulations. None of us can help our parentage, can we?

Regulus changes the subject. "What were you listening to earlier?"

"The Homicidal Pixies," Rabastan informs him.

"That's new," observes Barty. "What happened to Four Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw?"

"I don't like them anymore," says Rabastan, frowning. "They weren't political enough."

Regulus rolls his eyes. "They _weren't_ political enough? What's wrong with you, Rabastan?"

"Quite a lot," says Barty. Rabastan smirks, flicking the wireless with one finger.

---

It is Rabastan Lestrange's solemn and unpleasant duty, as a teenage male, to listen to absolutely abysmal music. Regulus and Barty, who are well-bred enough to never dream of rebellion, are exempt from this law, but at a price: Rabastan is forced, under the Imperius Curse if necessary, to listen to three times as much of it.

---

The song sputters back to life:

_Don't try to tell me we're all right_

_Not now_

_Let's hear it for the lies and all the happy smiles_

_Go on,  
Tell me what you want me to say_

_I'm just a worthless pawn in your game_

_We reach the top knowing that it's always going to be this way_

_Let's hear it for the regime_

Like all bands in the glorious 1970s, the Homicidal Pixies compose their music under the influence of heavy drugs. This, coincidentally, is the optimal state for listeners who enjoy their eardrums.

Terrible. Simply terrible.

"What," asks Regulus with dignity, "is _that_ supposed to be?"

"Ignore the lyrics," snaps Rabastan. "The lyrics aren't important."

"The singing is even worse than the lyrics," Regulus says, shaking his head.

"That sounds like a love song," muses Barty.

Rabastan and Regulus's facial expressions suggest, to the casual observer, that Barty has just cut off their bollocks with a rusty spoon and a pair of tweezers.

Barty has a rather odd idea of love.

_Propaganda_

_Get in line at the office for all the free_

_Propaganda_

_Rations running short so they're feeding us_

_Propaganda_

_Idiot citizens thinking everything is okay_

_Propaganda_

_Propaganda_

_I hear what you want me to hear_

_But I'm not buying all your_

_Propaganda_

_Come on!_

"That," says Regulus, "is not a love song. Not by any stretch of imagination."

Barty turns to face Regulus. Clearly, whatever Rabastan has _is_ contagious, and Barty's coming down with it: note his expression. "Rabastan's musical taste has gone downhill, hasn't it?"

"Terrible," agrees Regulus.

Rabastan folds his arms, pouting. "Set it to the next song, boys. The next song's better."

Regulus fiddles with the wireless.

_"Hello, boys. Today, we're going to hear a very special song in praise of the war effort. If you would all listen very, very closely..."_

_Give us all your daughters_

_Sell us all your sons tonight_

_We'll turn them into soldiers_

_And (beep) up all their lives_

_For a Galleon, we'll kill your boy  
We'll slice him up to die_

_For a hundred tons of idealism_

_And a thousand (beep)ing lies_

_You've worked so hard to raise them_

_Give them your hopes and visions_

_Now turn them over to the Ministry_

_And we'll throw them all in prison..._

"I've heard that song," says Barty, looking thoughtful. "That's older than the Suicidal--"

"Homicidal--"

"--Homicidal Pixies, isn't it?"

Rabastan shrugs.

"It does sound familiar," agrees Regulus. "The opening, especially--"

Barty slams his hand on the bedside table so hard that Rabastan gives him an envious glare: his fingers would have snapped in half if _he_'d tried that. "I _have_ heard that! It's Grindelwald-era, isn't it? A wartime ballad?"

"Or at least a parody of one," Regulus observes. "Those lyrics wouldn't inspire _me_ to join the Ministry."

Rabastan treats them to a sickly smirk. "I don't know, Regulus. Yes, it's truth in advertising, isn't it? 'Send us your kids, we'll kill them?'"

"Remind me never to join the Aurors," mutters Barty.

"Not all of the casualties were Aurors," Regulus points out. "Maybe three percent of them were really Aurors--"

"--in this country," says Rabastan dismissively. "Grindelwald's designs did not include Britain, no, it was just continental Europe for old Gellert."

"Your family was involved, Rabastan," says Regulus, making quite sure not to accuse him in any way.

Rabastan nods darkly: "My family was involved, yes."

Barty, unnoticed by either of them, twitches.

"So much for the Lestranges." Regulus sits down at long last, perching on the end of Rabastan's bed. (This sends earthquakes through the mattress; St. Mungo's, like all reputable hospitals, is notoriously cheap.) "A few of my family members were drafted, but none for long." He sighs, shaking his head. "Then the Ministry got rid of the draft entirely."

"We've heard this in History of Magic," whispers Rabastan, searching frantically for a tissue (Regulus has the dubious honor of being the first to make someone seasick using only a cheap mattress). Barty and Regulus watch, in masochistic fascination, as he spits blood of unknown and dubious provenance into an innocent, lily-white tissue.

"That reminds me," says Regulus, smiling desperately, "you graduated, didn't you?"

Regulus has had only fifteen years' practice at changing the subject.

"Clearly," says Rabastan, dabbing his blue-gray lips with another tissue. "Damn it," he rasps, "what do I have to do, boys? I graduate, yes, and then three months later, hooray, I drop dead! I mean, really, why in Merlin's name did I bother?"

Rabastan touches a nerve, and Barty looks distinctly less cute and innocent as he snaps, "Well, you got your O.W.L.s and your N.E.W.T.s, didn't you? Isn't that good enough?"

They aren't entirely sure, in the second after Barty says that, if Rabastan is still alive. His pallor and expression are rather suspicious.

"Sorry," says Barty, going pale pink. (This, for him, constitutes blushing.) "It's stress."

"We aren't _all_ losing our minds," says Regulus, rather sharply. Barty pretends to hit him, and Regulus pretends not to think that Barty is on the verge of snapping and beating poor frail Rabastan to death out of a misplaced jealousy of Rabastan's ability to drop dead at short notice. (Barty _has_ been rather irritable lately.)

"It's all right," gasps Rabastan, slumping back onto his pillow. "I understand. How are your O.W.L.s going?"

"Badly," says Barty. "I'm taking twelve subjects, remember? I don't have time to sleep."

Barty is exactly the sort of person who crams for his O.W.L.s a year in advance.

"And yet," observes Regulus, "you have time to visit Rabastan in the hospital."

Barty goes even pinker. "You make it sound frivolous."

"You make me sound pathetic," Rabastan says.

"You are," says Barty, with a hint of a smile.

"Alas," breathes Rabastan, "it is my sad fate to be a neurotic cripple with no friends."

Regulus leans over. "Don't frighten him, he mutters, "he hasn't been himself lately and he's so _young_."

"I can hear you," says Barty. "There's no need to be particularly overprotective. I get enough of that at home."

Regulus and Rabastan aren't surprised. Barty rolls his eyes in a fashion that, quite possibly, suggests that the first person to mention his father without his express permission will be barbecued alive, assuming that bourgeois Barty has heard of barbecue.

"My mother didn't want me to leave," he explains.

"She doesn't want you to go to Hogwarts next year?" asks Regulus, who has heard nothing of this strange development. "What about your O.W.L.s?"

"Worse," says Barty, and the cynicism brigade is out in full force today in his young voice. "She didn't want me to leave the house."

Poor Barty. Daddy issues, exam stress, and enough repression for an entire psych ward of neurotics.

Regulus gives him an understanding nod. "Your mother may be right. It _is_ dangerous."

"No," says Barty crossly, "it isn't." He turns away, arms folded firmly across his chest, as if he's anticipating an army of Death Eaters to descend upon him and mail him back to his parents, one piece at a time. "When has it really been dangerous for _us_, Regulus? We're kids. Not Aurors. Kids."

"You're so _young_," sneers Rabastan, but it's playful: Rabastan is shorter and more childish than either of them. "Only fifteen."

"Fifteen," scoffs Barty. "Who'd go after us?"

"I can think of someone who might," says Evan Rosier from behind them. "Hello, Rabastan. Good to see you looking well."

Rabastan, when he sees Evan, is not looking at all well. Quite the contrary; I believe that that sound he just made was the implosion of his liver and gallbladder, but I could be wrong. It could have been his kidneys.

"We thought we'd come see you," sneers Edmund Wilkes, pushing open the door. "Cozy," he adds, taking a few steps inside and glancing around. "Avery would _love_ it in here."

"So he would," says Evan. He glances politely from Regulus, whom he knows by reputation, to Barty, who is, after all, the son of a government official, and thereby firmly upper-middle-class and excluded from Evan's social circle. "Have we met?"

Regulus and Barty shake their heads mutely. I wouldn't have thought that Evan and Edmund were particularly scary, but it's nice to see scum getting its due. Rabastan appears to have died of a sudden heart attack, but then, the last time he saw these men, he was lying on the parlor floor, bleeding to death. He is, indeed, having flashbacks.

Regulus turns the wireless off; it doesn't help Rabastan, and he didn't expect it to, but it certainly helps Regulus.

"I," says Evan, "am Evan Rosier, and this is Edmund Wilkes." Edmund nods shortly. "Who might we have the pleasure to meet?"

"Regulus Black," says Regulus, holding his head high. "And this is Barty Crouch."

Edmund and Evan have had plenty of practice doing double takes. All the same, this is a good one, even for them.

"Junior," clarifies Regulus, after a moment's awkward silence. Barty tries to smile politely, but his eyes would prefer to glower at the intruders.

"That explains it," says Evan breezily. "I _thought_ there was a resemblance--the jawline, the shape of the nose and eyes, there's a distinct similarity there--but I didn't want to mention it. Just. You know. In case."

"In case," echoes Barty quietly. "Of course."

My God, I believe Barty's voice just deepened a half-octave! It's a miracle! Theodosia, Theodosia, he's going through puberty at long last!

"Is Rabastan receiving visitors today?" asks Evan, who has the good sense not to push Barty too far.

---

He can feel her grinding his face into the floorboards. It's coming off easily, crumbling away like soft bread and sweet butter, and he never would have believed that anything could hurt so much. He can feel a bloody smear left behind under his skull; it cuts down on the friction, and what's left of his face slides easily across the wet boards, but it stings like acid, like tears, like fire, and it isn't worth it.

---

Regulus glances at his friend's half-closed eyes, the quick, jerky way his chest rises and falls, and the facial tics that have all come back at once, and decides: no, Rabastan would much rather not see these particular visitors. "I don't think he is," he says cautiously.

"Shame," says Edmund coolly. "We'll just have to come back later, then."

---

He doesn't know how he can see. He knows that his optic nerves were destroyed along with his eyes. But she pulls him up by the shoulder, and shows him off to the waiting crowd, and he can see them all, laughing and hooting and--is that Rodolphus among them?

Oh, God.

Rodolphus comes closer, and closer, and Rabastan can see it in his eyes, a reflection, distorted and blurred but _there_, impossibly, the bloody rags that are left of his face, hanging off his delicate skull like yesterday's laundry, and he knows now that the only reason that there's no more pain is because he's already dead. And eyeless.

---

"We can give him the message when he wakes up," Regulus says helpfully.

Edmund nods.

"Funny; he was awake when we came in, wasn't he, Evan?"

"I believe he was," says Evan quietly. He moves over to Rabastan, nudging Barty and Regulus aside, and places one hand on Rabastan's forehead.

Rabastan shrieks. His spine arches, without his conscious input, like a snake coiling to strike. His hand goes kamikaze, swooping into Evan's hand and knocking it away. His other hand searches blindly for an ally; Regulus and Barty both lunge to grab it, and he takes their hands gratefully. He wants to thank them, but--

---

--he's back in the nightmare now, and--

---

--the pain--

---

--the fear--

---

--trying to tell them that he's okay. But he isn't, is he? She hurt him, he's hurting, it's a sickness:

"Like butter! It slides like butter! Even the bones don't stop anything, no, they don't, do they?"

"Rabastan," says Regulus urgently, staring into his eyes, "can you hear me?"

Rabastan wants to tell them he's okay, but the right words won't come.

"Yes! Thought you were mine, on my side! Brother, why? Eyes, they're like mirrors--I see everything--shouldn't look, no, not right!"

Evan takes a step back, looking sickened. None of the Rosiers have _ever_ suddenly gone mad in his presence. So much for Rabastan Lestrange.

Rabastan's mind breaks up, floats apart, then coalesces. It shatters at the slightest touch, then runs back together. Have you ever mixed water and cornstarch? Rabastan's consciousness is like that.

Edmund, however, is not at all surprised.

He never is.

Rabastan can feel his brain leaking out his ears as he tries to talk to them.

"It's pretty when we fall down! Like flowers! You know how they die in the winter? Roses always do--you can never keep them alive--trying is pointless and for pussies. Sometimes my fingers bleed. That's why it's wrong, you see," he announces to the world at large. "Better men fuck. I just read. And they're like falling razor blades. The pages are. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. You're really all just jealous. When you're not laughing."

He wants to be coherent, he really does.

"Put me through a meat-grinder and fuck the remains--nuns do that in the sanctity of their little cloisters--I've read Nietzsche, you know." Rabastan smiles brightly. "Sometimes the razors bleed on my face but I can usually ignore that."

"Can you shut him up?" asks Edmund in exasperation.

"Probably not," says Evan. "_Silencio!_" Rabastan touches his throat, gulps, then hides under the blankets.

They stare at the quivering lump in the bed for a while.

"That," says Regulus at last, "was not how you wanted to meet him, was it, Mr. Rosier?"

If I had a choice, _I_ would tell Evan that that was perfectly normal for Rabastan Virgil Lestrange, and that he was unlikely ever to encounter Rabastan in a state of sufficient sanity to understand what he had to say. It would probably be suicide, but at least it would be _noble_ suicide.

Evan shrugs. "It was quite interesting," he says. "If not particularly informative. And," he adds, "by the way, we've met before."

Evan and Edmund, when pressed, decline to explain. So does Rabastan.

After a while, though, Evan makes them an offer that they can't refuse.

---

"You know," says Barty, as he and Regulus step outside St. Mungo's, "the coffee was a complete waste of money."

Evan nods sympathetically.

"He didn't even drink it," Edmund says. "That was, what, five Galleons down the drain?"

"Ten," says Barty. Regulus tries to put a friendly arm around his shoulder, but Barty is fifteen and he will not be comforted.

"Cheer up," says Evan. "We'll buy the drinks."

---

**...to be continued, when and if I feel like it.**

**I always wanted to say that.**

**The next chapter will be shorter.**


	8. Chapter 8: Critical Recruitment Failure

**Disclaimer: All **_**Harry Potter**_** characters are the property of George Lucas and Lucasfilm Inc.**

**Or not.**

**A/N: I did indeed decide to continue. But really, was there ever any question about it?**

**Warnings: Swears, ice cream, critical recruitment failure, disturbing battle imagery, possibly excessive Barty angst, decaying corpses. Barty, Rabastan, and Regulus have a very **_**close**_** friendship, apparently. No, this was **_**not**_** done simply for the benefit of the slash fangirls. Really. Genuine artistic reasons. Seriously. Nothing impure about my motivations at all. The narrator may or may not have a thing for Bellatrix. The narrator may have a point there.**

**Things That You Know You Want To See: Rabastan, Regulus, and Barty have subtext. So do Rosier and Wilkes. Rodolphus and Bellatrix may not have sexual tension, but they **_**do**_** jinx Lucius. Rodolphus throws a screaming temper tantrum. So does Barty.**

---

Here's how the conversation _should _go:

From him: "Oh, by the way, I'm really working for the Ministry. I hereby arrest you--"

From them, in unison: "Fuck."

It's a nice fantasy. And not, altogether, an implausible one. Let's just pretend that we don't know Lucius better than that. Let's just pretend that the Lestranges would surrender so easily. And I'll take the liberty of assuming that Agatha wouldn't object.

Well, one never _can_ be quite sure with Agatha Jugson.

---

It's, technically speaking, not the most intelligent discusson to have around a decent society girl. Too bad for all of us that Agatha isn't one.

Agatha takes another sip of her tea and listens. (After a moment, she adds a sugar cube. They're French, and horribly expensive.)

"Your tactics--" Lucius coughs in a manner that is highly suggestive of him having a sugar cube caught in his throat. "--may be condoned by the Dark Lord, but--"

"What more do you ask?" inquires Bellatrix. If Bellatrix narrows her eyes, her eyes are technically shut. So she doesn't narrow them, but the rest of her expression more than makes up for the deficiency. "If the Dark Lord approves--and he does, he _does_!--you dare complain?"

Bellatrix, my dear Bellatrix, the Dark Lord is batshit insane. So are you. So is everyone at this happy little mad tea party.

Rodolphus puts down his cigarette, something he'd never do under normal circumstances, and grins. That smile, I have always felt, is simply barbaric and inappropriate for polite society. Everyone present is, of course, completely used to it; what better can you _really_ expect from Rodolphus Lestrange? "Yeah," he informs the world in a rough whisper. "The Dark Lord matters. You don't." If there's laughter in Rodolphus Lestrange's eyes, and there is, it's the laughter of the madman about to be hanged. His abandoned cigarette smolders on the table.

"Indeed," says Lucius. "I assume that the seven Death Eaters you wasted would agree with you?"

Bellatrix scowls. Blood--what little blood is left in her body after her military career--rushes out of her brain and into her face. "Their lives were a necessary sacrifice, Lucius!"

Every necessary sacrifice requires _someone_ to be fried in motor oil. This is a well-known part of military strategy.

"Really," drawls Lucius. "I was under the impression that you killed them for fun."

"Same thing," growls Rodolphus, and he flicks his wand to extinguish the small inferno sweeping across the table. Sometimes Rodolphus just doesn't give a crap. (The expensive nicotine is more important to him--hedonist, he is--than Lucius is. It was, more or less, a peace offering; he took the offering, no sense wasting it, but he left the peace at the door.)

When Malfoy Manor was built, centuries ago, the architects anticipated the overwhelming need that Lucius Malfoy would have for tea parties. It's a light, airy room, facing out over the gardens; the windows are open, and the room is being invaded by currents of cool air. That's the full extent of the militaristic imagery. Bellatrix and Rodolphus look completely ridiculous, out of place; the raving queen of hearts and her mad warlord, a thousand years out of date. Agatha and the silent, unmoving Narcissa, however, are perfectly suited to tea parties and frippery in the middle of war. Make of that what you will.

Lucius, of course, looks completely at home here. He always does.

---

The place Evan and Edmund have in mind is a bit of a walk from St. Mungo's.

"You didn't mention," says Regulus after a few blocks, "where we're going."

"You'll see when we get there," says Edmund. "Now shut up."

"He doesn't mean it," Evan interjects.

"Yes, I do," retorts Edmund. "Don't worry, you'll like it," he adds. "Trust me."

"Why should we?" asks Barty, and it's hardly his _fault_ if the question sounds confrontational and horribly offensive.

"Because we're paying," Edmund says. "And we're rich purebloods with no day jobs--"

"Edmund!" Evan cuts across him. "I'm sorry about him," he adds, turning to the boys. "Even his wife doesn't like him."

"I don't mind him," says Regulus.

"Maybe _you_ don't," retorts Barty, trying to sound cynical and confrontational, and being foiled by the unfortunate fact that he actually _is_. Barty's a very complex young man, and nothing he does makes any sense whatsoever. Don't mind the neuroses. He's only trying to impress.

Evan and Edmund exchange looks, then laugh their heads off.

_They're brilliant_, thinks Barty, who is increasingly certain that he was horribly mistaken at first, and that Rabastan's insane temper tantrum was the act of an immature coward instead of the _very sensible_ act of a traumatized young man who also happens to be an immature coward. _Who do these men know? What do these men know? How have I missed people like this for so long?_

_And Rabastan knows them. Rabastan knows them--Rabastan! Annoying, immature, delusional, twitchy Rabastan, brilliant, sweet-underneath-everything, heartbreaking surrogate brother Rabastan, someone like me--he knows them, and they respect his opinion enough to want to see him, and they want to see me, too. They want to know what I think._ Barty is a strange young man; the Ministry has made noises about wanting him as an Auror, and he's top draft material for Azkaban.

_They seem pleasant_, Regulus decides,_ sarcastic, but intelligent and civilized. Playful, theatrical. As if they're trying to win me over. If they cared about _me_, they would have gone for me first, not just when they realized they couldn't have Rabastan._

_Why didn't Rabastan want to see them? What does he know that we don't?_

_I'm walking into a trap,_ thinks Regulus, who was raised by wolves, albeit wolves who happen to be aristocrats.

After half an hour's walk, Evan calls them to a halt. Regulus and Barty, London boys born and bred, have never been into this part of town. When the locals see rich people, they get out their _good_ weapons. This particular neighborhood, known affectionately as 'the Pits', is nasty, brutal, poor, and small enough that mapmakers tend to ignore it completely, or else conveniently hide it behind a department store, and Londoners two streets over have never heard of it. And, worst of all, it is an entirely Muggle community.

Regulus and Barty stare like rabbits confronted with a Hungarian Horntail. They have the same instinct to turn and run. Evan has turned an odd color, though that might be the fact that the sun never shines here, and even Edmund looks disgusted. "Human trash," he sneers, indicating a hobo; the poor piece of human trash doesn't react, although he is, after all, dead.

"Is there a reason you brought us into the slums?" demands Regulus. Barty, behind him, is squeezing his hand as he stares at the corpse. Barty's never seen a dead man before. "Are we supposed to get drinks _here_?"

"You can't get a decent butterbeer here, I don't doubt," Evan says, and his smile is less sunny than usual. "No, we're just stopping by for a look. It's a good thing that we didn't bring your friend, now that I think about it," he adds cheerfully, though he's finding it difficult to be his usual upbeat self when faced with commoners. "He'd have been sick to his stomach. No, just a look around, and then we'll be moving on--"

"A look at _what?_" asks Regulus, grimacing. _Don't_, he thinks, _be sick, don't be sick, don't be sick_...

---

They just don't care, do they? Maniacs are like that. You think that you can trust them, or rather that you can't trust them but you can _control_ them, and then your pretty little illusions are wiped away when they rape your wife and enslave your children for no reason, no reason at all... Bellatrix's reasons are a lie, to the world she hates and the bastards she despises and the conscience that she never, ever had. Rodolphus's problem is that he doesn't need reasons.

(Bartemius Anatoly Crouch had reasons once, but he seems to have misplaced them.)

Murder and torture are fun, aren't they? Who can catch you at it? Who would dare try? They might be next. Little children, these days, aren't allowed out alone.

(Barty and Regulus aren't little children anymore; they shouldn't be allowed out alone, but who can stop them?)

There's a war going on, and it doesn't affect you or me. It doesn't affect Regulus. It doesn't affect Lucius.

(No matter what happens, Lucius benefits.)

Whose war is this? Is it Voldemort's war with the Ministry, when the real casualties are among the Muggles? Is it the war of the Muggles and the Death Eaters? The Muggles don't know _what_ the hell is going on. Is it Voldemort's war at all, or Millicent Bagnold's? Neither of them is anywhere near the _real_ war: the part of the war in which your mates are getting ripped in half while you watch in abject terror.

(If you ask me, I'd say that it was Bellatrix Lestrange's war with Bartemius Crouch Senior. They're both fanatics, and terrible strategists as well.)

---

"How many casualties?" asks Algernon Garvenbach, beleaguered head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.  
Bartemius sits stiff-backed, rigid with a sense of his own importance. "Our side or" (his sneer is barely perceptible) "theirs, sir?" Only fifty-nine and already head of the Auror office (and there are rumors that he might replace Garvenbach after the old sod retires). Amazing, really.

"Ours first," says Garvenbach, not meeting Bartemius's eyes.

This is not what Bartemius wanted to discuss--he barely knows his subordinates' names!--but what can he do? "We lost three Aurors," he admits. "But," he adds quickly, looking for the silver lining, "seven were killed by their own men, and we identified four--"

Garvenbach gives Bartemius a Look. Bartemius, whatever his personal failures, is a brilliant man, and he knows that look well; abashed, he falls silent.

"Peasegood was killed instantly," he says finally, with the lack of emotion that betrays him as an utter bastard. "Smith and Kirke died shortly after arrival at St. Mungo's."

Garvenbach bows his head. Bartemius watches him, helplessly, and the small part of Bartemius Crouch Senior that I can feel in any way sorry for wonders, _Why am I not crying?_

They sit there, in Garvenbach's cramped office, for four minutes, or maybe five. The clock on the wall keeps the time as well as it ever has. _When I am department head_, thinks Bartemius, _I will have to get that fixed_--he immediately feels guilty, presumptuous, but it's too late, he's had the thoughts, and a mean-spirited part of him thinks that he could do much better than poor Garvenbach. Garvenbach is staring at his shoes, and he thinks nothing at all, and the grief in the room is too much, far too much for Bartemius to deal with or even begin to understand. And he was there, watching them die.

"Have you contacted their families?" Garvenbach murmurs, almost inaudibly, reaching for his pipe. Bartemius nods. Garvenbach fumbles with the bowl of the pipe, packing in the sweet, sweet eraser of memories and lungs--Bartemius watches politely, though he's bored--and he relaxes only when he puts it to his lips. "That's good, then," he says feebly, and spits smoke halfway across the room (Bartemius winces). He sighs. "I shouldn't be smoking. Not on such a sad occasion."

Bartemius nods briefly, without much interest, though something in him that he has not yet managed to extinguish tells him sternly that Garvenbach is quite right.

"Yes, sir."

"How did they die?" asks Garvenbach abruptly, lowering his pipe and mimicking the stern coldness of Bartemius's stare.

Bartemius _never_ wanted to have to answer that question. He's thrown off guard, into a realm he, for all his intellect, still doesn't quite understand; he hesitates for a fraction, the tiniest sliver of a moment of a second, and Garvenbach has him.

It was his _fault_ that they died. Mea culpa, mea culpa. Bartemius made a mistake, a tiny little mistake in calculation and guesswork and fanatical stupidity, and the Death Eaters had him. He gambled their lives and he lost. _It wasn't my fault_, he screams silently, daring Garvenbach to accuse him--him! Auror extraordinaire--of murder, but not daring to speak up. _It was tragedy, it was an unforeseen accident, a hazard of the job, but it wasn't my mistake; their blood isn't on my hands. I didn't kill them. The Death Eaters cursed them, they fell, and what could I do?_ Bartemius, if he was a decent man, should be having some kind of revelation, some sort of epiphany right now; his guilt passes quickly, and by the end of the thought, he's quite complacent in his belief that it, above all, was not his fault. _I will avenge them. I will make sure, absolutely sure, that their killers go to Azkaban: nothing more, nothing less, than what they deserve!_

_They were good men._

"And, by the way," says Garvenbach as Bartemius stares, "_do_ try to bring the Death Eaters in alive."

---

Their killers were Evan Rosier, strategist, and Edmund Wilkes, in his renowned capacity as whatever the hell he actually does. I can't really blame them, though, for the deaths of Peasegood and Smith and Kirke. They were cogs in the machine, underlings of the Dark Lord, neural twitches in the great insanity device, and though they're evil men, they aren't the murderers of the ten poor bastards who died.

Ask Bellatrix Lestrange why she gleefully led her men to their deaths. Ask Rodolphus why he killed the lot, and checked allegiances--uniforms! He knew damn well that he was killing as many Death Eaters as Aurors--while he smoked his victory cigarette. Ask Bartemius why he sent his loyal men in when he knew that they wouldn't come back out. Ask anyone. Ask no one. The answers you'll get will never satisfy you, because the answers are, and you know this before you ask, idiotic. War is hell, my little boys and girls: the war with Voldemort is justified--who _wouldn't_ lay down their lives to defeat the oppressor?--and it's still a hellhole where the foot soldiers get sliced in half and the commanders who sent them there get medals. All the justification in the world won't bring good men back. They died for their country, for their beliefs, for freedom for all Wizardkind, and Muggles too. They died in vain, but they died for all the right reasons. They were stupid to be heroes, because heroes die like anyone else, and yet, they were admirable men. They knew, when they walked into the fires of hell, and they saw the flaming corpses all around, and felt the way the concrete boiled beneath their feet, that they weren't coming back, _and yet they went in and were slaughtered like cattle_. And that is why we kill the other side's bastards first.

---

Regulus heard about the battle in the newspaper, and after retching suitably at the pictures of the aftermath, he read it again to toughen his stomach. Barty heard about it from his father, who, unfortunately, was one of the few men who walked out alive. Rabastan did not hear about it at all, because he was, and is, in hospital, and Regulus and Barty know exactly what a shock would do to their poor sickly friend.

The battle scene played in a cul-de-sac, upscale and newly fashionable; the fancy houses burned like any others, and the driveways settled over the trees when the spells flew and sent the tar bubbling into the air like a black volcano. The warriors, fallible human beings that they were, didn't know which way was up half the time, and the rest of the time they knew all too well. There was no guff about the International Statute of Secrecy; it's a tiny bit hard to disguise the fact that a suburban street has just blown up, and the wreckage was so burnt, once the gas tanks of the Muggles' cars ignited from someone's _Avada Kedavra_, that all traces of magic were incinerated. A Muggle girl was caught in the first blast, and, were it not for a certain Mr. Crouch's eyewitness testimony, they would still be wondering if she'd run across the country with her boyfriend. Her body was never found, but then, it _did_ explode. And none of the gory sights or the gruesome carnage or the Aurors' heroic sacrifices _begin_ to compare with the devastation that Rabastan and Barty witness now. But it's almost sadder, because _this_ scene of devastation was one that the Muggles brought upon themselves. Moreover, there is a significantly higher chance, here, of catching rabies from hoboes.

That might have been why this one died, actually: rabies. (This means that we should all stay well away from Bellatrix if ever she foams at the mouth.) He's been dead for weeks, and what a sight he is. His body is indistinguishable from the newspapers under which he lies; he's rotted like leaves and mulch and mold, and his clothes have stiffened into the approximate shape of his torso before it collapsed. Someone's vomited on his begging bowl, and the smell of the whole mess is making Barty want to join that mystery benefactor and donate a few mouthfuls of breakfast. If that wasn't disgusting enough, dear voyeurs, there's a political flyer on his chest.

They're all grateful, even Edmund, when Evan grimaces a bit and says, while trying not to breathe too much, "Have you seen enough? Are you boys ready to head back?" Barty and Regulus cannot thank him enough. As they leave the Pits, a drunken old Muggle ambles out of his hovel and flips them the bird.

"That was certainly something, wasn't it?" chirps Evan a little later, when they've reached the safety of London Town proper. The sun shines upon them once again.

Regulus's upbringing fails him; he's lost for words. Barty, behind him, might never speak again. This is the one benefit of their little detour.

"Disgusting," mutters Edmund. "Appalling. The whole place should be demolished."

Evan raises his eyebrows. "What do you think, boys?" He smiles. "Should the Pits be torn down?"

Regulus didn't expect to have the question put to him so abruptly. Just like that, "want to nuke the place?" Almost an invitation to say what he's been thinking but didn't put into words, _couldn't_ put into words: "Yes," he says darkly. "I agree; it's a financial drain. An urban menace. A blight on society--"

"Now you sound like Barty Crouch," says Evan, putting just enough venom into his words to imply, without ever really _saying_ so, _per se_, that he thinks Bartemius Crouch is a raving loony. "Whoops," he adds, seeing Barty's face. "Sorry, meant your father."

Barty doesn't speak. He's shuddering, gasping like a drowning man; Regulus puts an arm around his shoulder. "Why," Regulus asks, very quietly, "did you take him into the slums?"

Edmund shrugs. "He's got a right to know, Master Black."

"Master Black, is he? That's formal," says Evan with a little laugh. "Can I call you Regulus?"

"You aren't answering my question," says Regulus with a sniff. "I would prefer Master Black," he adds as an afterthought; he feels significantly less friendly toward the strange older men now, and sometimes he enjoys making his inferiors sound like house-elves.

"Well, then, Master Black," Evan says, bouncing back from the disappointment, "Edmund is right. Master Crouch--"

"Barty is fine," mumbles Barty, who is staring very hard at the hem of his robes. He feels stupid, being nauseated by a corpse--_just a corpse_--in front of such men, but there you go.

"--Barty does have a right to know," and Evan looks just as friendly as he says it, "what kind of scum is living in London."

That's clever. Even _I_ think it's a good move--I'm impressed by bastardry in general, though, so don't take it from me. Look here, boys and girls, you might learn something: Evan's like Lucius Malfoy, if Lucius Malfoy had only half a brain in his head. He doesn't know too much about who he's talking to--Rabastan, his original target, has been excused from the little day-trip by way of complete insanity--and he doesn't know what Barty's loyalties are. He knows Barty's father--who _doesn't_ know what Mr. Crouch believes?--so he guesses that Barty has been, at least a little, conditioned to approve of the Ministry's current pro-Muggle, anti-Voldemort policies. What an idiot. So he doesn't come out and say "Do you hate Muggles as much as I do?" Instead, he finds some Muggles that Barty and Regulus are almost _guaranteed_ to hate, and he asks about those first. In other words, you really can't tell that Evan and Edmund planned this gambit for Rabastan and hastily adapted it at the last moment; it almost looks like genuine intelligence and insight.

"But don't take it from me," Evan adds cheerily. "I'll explain after I buy you drinks, shall I? Nonalcoholic," he adds, seeing Regulus's _I-don't-think-we-should-be-doing-that_ face.

Mystified and intrigued, Barty and Regulus follow him, and Edmund "You Bastard" Wilkes kicks a puppy as they go.

---

"Shall we go outside?" asks Lucius, in a friendly, non-confrontational manner. He tops it off with a sweeping gesture, indicating the great outdoors and suggesting that anyone would be a pitiable fool to sit inside drinking tea. Narcissa nods, smiles briefly, and rises; the Lestranges remain in their seats, and Agatha, who rises with Narcissa, looks a pitiable fool.

"It's nice outside," she pleads with Rodolphus. "Please, Mr. Lestrange, roses are beautiful at this time of year--"

Rodolphus meets Bellatrix's eyes, and he almost rises before she indicates, with a little jerk of her head (invisible to Lucius, all too obvious to Narcissa), that if Rodolphus attempts to leave without her express permission, he sleeps on the couch for a month. "Yeah," he says instead, "I know they are. We can see the damn roses later," he adds. "Now we talk."

"We can speak outside," says Lucius, a little more coolly. "We will not be overheard, I can assure you--"

"We stay here!" Bellatrix snarls, and Narcissa is forced to remind her, via a great deal of surreptitious indication, that this is, indeed, Narcissa's fucking house. "This discussion happens inside," she says, more calmly but colder than hell, "or I will not speak another word--"

Narcissa interrupts her. "Bella," she says in a _Bellatrix-Lestrange-is-my-sister-and-I-too-can-be-ruthless-and-cruel-when-necessary_ sort of way, "you do not have the right to dictate the terms of this discussion--"

"The hell we don't," interrupts Rodolphus. Agatha sighs. _This_, she thinks, _is going to take all day, is it not?_

In the end, they go outside and smell the flowers. They _are_ beautiful; I, personally, don't think it's a fitting environment for the discussion of life-and-death military matters, but what do I know? Lucius seems to know what he's doing, at the very least, and I suppose that if matters go bad, they can always take the roses and prick each other to death. The sun shines down upon them, and there are butterflies gamboling merrily to and fro like inebriated children. The purebloods stroll among the rosebushes and make approving comments; a house-elf sees them coming and rapidly finds some geographically distant work to do.

Bellatrix's wand is already in her hand, and some poor unfortunate butterfly is alight before she knows she's done it. It's a mark of her boredom and aggravation that she doesn't feel any better.

"Charming," says Lucius, watching it burn. Narcissa, behind him, grimaces and looks away.

Rodolphus grins at them darkly and lights another cigarette. "You," he grunts, "wanted to talk out here." Lucius inclines his head. "Talk," says Rodolphus, and he turns slightly to inspect a particularly exquisite rose. "Go on," he adds, "tell me I'm a bastard for letting her kill them."

_Damn_, Lucius thinks. _The imbecile knows._ "I wasn't going to say that," he says, and Bellatrix laughs shortly.

"Of course you were," she snaps. Her eyes narrow to slits again, and her lips contort into something that is, unfortunately, a smile. "He couldn't have stopped me," she adds darkly. "Not Rodolphus."

Rodolphus gives her a contented smirk, blowing smoke at her as he does so. "Don't know about that, Bella..." He turns to Lucius. "Yeah," he says in an emotionless monotone, "I knew they were all fucked when she gave them the orders."

"You sent them in anyway," Narcissa says coldly.

Rodolphus and Bellatrix exchange glances. "He never had a choice," she says, flicking her wand disdainfully; the ashes of the unlucky butterfly swirl into her palm in a tiny whirlwind, and she closes her fist on them. "But he killed them," she adds gleefully.

"Explain," Lucius begs her, and his skill is such that it comes off not as begging, but as an order. And yet he begs.

Agatha strokes the stem of a rose with her hand as she looks up. "I hope that it's obvious, Mr. Malfoy?" she asks in her soft voice. "Mr. and Madam Lestrange murdered their entire regiment for fun."

How inconsiderate of them.

---

"Order anything you want to," says Evan, and he makes sure to hand Regulus the menu first, according to the immutable laws of social position, group dynamics, the fact that Regulus is sitting across from him at the table, and other such irrelevant bullshit.

"Thank you," Regulus says stiffly. He regards the menu with an air of extreme suspicion, as if he doesn't know which side goes up. Edmund and Evan watch him as if they've never seen anything more fascinating in their lives, and Barty takes advantage of their momentary distraction to snuggle up to the cafe wall and long to disappear.

The cafe is an odd place, catering to a mixed Muggle-wizard clientele. It's a large room, almost pub-like in decoration and mood, with dark wooden booths around the walls, tables in the center, and a counter at one end of the room. There are signs on the walls, specially enchanted to be unreadable to Muggles: '_**No Magic**__', '__**Wands To Be Used Only In Self-Defense**__', '__**No Obviously Magical Conversation At Tables (booths are enchanted with Muffling Charms)**__'. _Our heroes have taken a booth in the far corner, away from prying eyes; their wizard's robes would draw only the most cursory of looks in this dual demographic hell, but the sight of a Ministry brat and a spoiled scion of Wizarding London's most powerful family--both innocent-looking, slender, elegant young men--being treated to lunch by two suspicious adult men might spur cries of "Perverts! Pedophiles! _Save the children!_" Barty and Regulus are walking into this of their own free will, and Evan and Edmund have better things to do than try to get into the pants of fifteen-year-olds.

They get drinks, and they learn each other's names; the sarcasm continues, in a feast of repartee (it isn't funny, but they all pretend that it is), and Edmund loosens up considerably. That might be the alcohol, though; who knows with Edmund Wilkes?

"I expect," he drawls, mimicking Lucius's refined accent, "that you're wondering why we're wasting our precious time on schoolkids."

Regulus and Barty, neither of whom is familiar with Death Eater recruiting customs, and Lucius Malfoy's integral role in same, fail miserably to get the point.

---

"Is this true?" asks Narcissa in a deadly whisper.

Bellatrix steps toward her, recklessly invading her personal space. Narcissa steps back; Bellatrix lunges again, keeping herself as close to Narcissa as she can. "Yes," she says, raising her eyebrows, "it is true."

"_Bella_," spits Narcissa, and she pulls back again, appalled. They circle each other like rival Seekers, waiting to dive. "You didn't--you couldn't have!"

"But I did." Bellatrix smiles. It isn't pleasant, I assure you. The worst part of being mauled by Bellatrix Lestrange, brilliant duelist, trusted torturer, strategist from hell, the woman who sent you in to die for her own sick amusement and killed you when you didn't die as quickly as she'd hoped, is having to see her smile about it.

Then again, the men she made into Crispy Fried Death Eater _were_ just like her, and a few Aurors one way or the other really doesn't seem much of a price to pay for that kind of victory against the ranks of the irredeemably evil. Think about it, if you must: how many lives were those Aurors going to save over their lifetimes--lives that _would not have been saved by another man_? One or two each, perhaps? Aurors are highly talented, overqualified for any other job, and the mediocre need not apply; usually there are only one or two future Aurors in every graduating class. Hogwartians graduate once a year, and everyone wants to be part of the elite. So there are plenty of hopefuls, and some of them have genuine talent. Perhaps. One or two. Maybe. If you're lucky. Peasegood and Kirke and Smith were good men, but they were replaceable. The Aurors are allowed to recruit in public.

The Death Eaters aren't. Perhaps twenty-five percent of the Wizarding population (three thousand in Britain) is pureblooded, and perhaps half of that twenty-five percent are the aristocrats that Voldemort so desperately wants to recruit. Twelve point five percent. Three hundred and seventy-five rich bastards, all of whom are cousins. Some are too old, some are too young, some are mothers--we can't have mothers! Think of the children! Who's going to raise all that wand fodder if the Dark Lord sends mothers to war?--some are so pathetic that even Voldemort won't have them. So Voldemort takes half-bloods if he must, he accepts plebeians who long to be patricians, and he's hardly waiting for Barty Crouch and Regulus Black to turn seventeen. He uses stealth. He uses trickery. He uses blackmail. He uses Rosier and Wilkes. He builds up an army of two hundred, some talented, some worthless, some refined, some filth, all of them scum. And Bellatrix Lestrange, the most powerful witch in his forces, kills seven of them at once. Poor, poor Voldemort.

The only person who's happy is Bartemius Crouch Senior. Seven Death Eaters dead. Who cares about the cost? I must admit, however, that, looking objectively at all of this, I must agree with him. That's your lesson in ethics for today. Remember it well: fanaticism and reckless disregard for the lives of your troops, not to mention the lives of civilians, are good as long as you wipe out the enemy, fill Azkaban with people who truly deserve to be there (even if their cellmates are as pure as driven snow), and generally make yourself as evil as those you oppose. As long as you're punished for your ruthless bastardry, the country will come out ahead, and no one will, in the end, care.

Lucius Malfoy doesn't consider these factors at all. Who do you _think_ is in charge of recruitment? Who do you _think_ goes through hell for the sake of keeping Voldemort's offices fully staffed with coffee boys?

"Seven Death Eaters dead," he says, stepping between Bellatrix and her sister. "Dear, dear. Would there be any point in asking you what you were thinking?" Lucius taught Evan and Edmund everything they know about sarcasm. Bellatrix taught Lucius everything he knows, but it may have been accidental.

"You think I need to justify myself to_ you_?" sneers Bellatrix. _He dares question the authority that the Dark Lord has given me?_ she thinks, and finds herself saying it out loud: "When the Dark Lord has given me these powers and this authority, you dare ask?"

"Perhaps the Dark Lord did not intend for you to subvert his goals," observes Lucius.

Bellatrix flushes, and her eyes catapult forward in her skull. "Subvert the Dark Lord's goals? You accuse me--"

I accuse her, too. What little power I have. How impotent I am. I can't stop her; I'm a cynic, a bastard, and I want her to die painfully. It hurts me to watch, and I can't look away. What a sick, masochistic voyeur I am. How attached I am to these poor little madmen, for whose sakes I go mad. And I say that my _audience_ has issues. But I'm a liar; we're really all just watching Lucius Malfoy. He's a bastard, but it's in a good way.

"It's difficult _not_ to accuse you," he says, his lip curling, "when you deplete the ranks of his servants for fun."

Bellatrix is beautiful in her rage. "_You accuse me! _Me! The Dark Lord's trusted deputy--"

"Yeah," says Rodolphus, without any helpful inflections or subtleties--subtleties are lost on Rodolphus Lestrange anyway--, and that is all. He takes another drag on his cigarette. His dull eyes find her breasts, then her face, and he looks a little bit repentant, but only just enough. Who knows what he's thinking?

"Don't think," says Lucius, "that your lower rank excuses your actions. You're every bit as responsible for this, Rodolphus."

Rodolphus comes a little closer to them, and he puts an arm around Bellatrix's shoulders. He's almost exactly her height, but he seems massive, brutish in comparison; she's a mutant, a freakishly tall woman, and Rodolphus is only a few inches above average. But he's big and intimidating, and his hands and his face are checkered with scar tissue. Handsome he may be, in theory, but even in the worst depths of Bellatrix's rage, aesthetically they're Beauty and the Beast. "Yeah," he says again, and Rodolphus-the-romantic, Rodolphus-the-victim, and Rodolphus-the-pathetic all step aside for Rodolphus-the-insane. "I killed them." He stares at Lucius and Narcissa, unseeing, and smokes his cigarette. Lucius steps back, disgusted, and Narcissa flees back into his arms, her face twisting, and, for once, Bellatrix is a little proud of the man she married. "Some of them. Bastard, aren't I? Madman, right?" He laughs, a hollow, warped sound, and a sound that indicates that (despite everything) he's rather pleased. "That what you think of me? Bastard? Fucker? Well" (he steps forward, and his hand slides along Bellatrix's outstretched arm until it meets hers and they lock) "I admit it. I killed them."

"They're dead," says Lucius. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain, and he flushes a bit as he continues, "d'you understand that, Rodolphus? Do you know what 'dead' means?"

"He understands, Mr. Malfoy," murmurs Agatha from a few feet away. Lucius's eyes flick to her briefly, but her voice is soft, and _of course_ she's a fragile young spinster who doesn't know a thing about war, and he feels justified in ignoring her completely.

He turns to Bellatrix instead. "Is he capable of discussing this rationally?" he asks, making the point that Rodolphus is, after all, her pet.

"You know him," she snaps, her black hair sliding into her eyes, "you know what he is, Lucius."  
"You and your...ah..._husband_," says Lucius, "have one thing in common. Neither of you is capable of fighting the Dark Lord's battles for him."

Rodolphus may not be an educated man, but he has the advantage over Lucius in one area: when he sees Bellatrix's wand hand twitch, he knows what's coming, and he takes it like a man. Lucius yelps as her spell hits him, and he brings his hand up to his face too quickly; when he pulls his fingers away, they, too, are red and smoking gently.

"Bellatrix!" snaps Narcissa, blue eyes burning, and she draws her own wand.

Bellatrix sneers at her, and spares a prideful little smile for her handiwork. But she won't hurt her baby sister. _Cissy wouldn't dare hurt me_, she thinks, and she figures that she's quite safe. "He deserved it, Cissy," she says softly. To Lucius, she snarls. "You have no right to say that," she spits, and her wand stays in her hand.

She exchanges a little glance with Rodolphus, and they smile in unison. The Beast appreciates that Beauty is even crazier than he is. Beauty thinks that it's nice to be respected by a man who can rip out hearts with his bare hands. Lucius and Narcissa exchange glances too, and the message they send is a sensible one: _don't push them._ It will only end in tears.

That doesn't, of course, mean that Lucius can't object to his treatment at the hands of the esteemed Bellatrix Artemis Lestrange, _nee_ Black. If he couldn't do that, there would be no point in his earthly existence.

Lucius spares a look of infinite disgust for his poor wounded hand. "You can't do that," he says, still staring at it: is it really there? Is his handsome face _that_ damaged? Did Bellatrix just do what he thinks that she did? Yes, she can, she did, and she'll do it again for a Sickle, if you ask nicely. "That--Bellatrix--_what_?!" he adds, coherent and well-spoken in ways that poor slow Rodolphus can only dream of. He draws his wand a fraction of a second before Rodolphus does, and a twitch on anyone's part will result in them being blown to hell in three pieces.

"Please!" says Agatha, blanching. "Please, Mr. Lestrange, Mr. Malfoy, Mrs. Lestrange, Mrs. Malfoy" (she runs through the list without a hint of embarrassment), "please put your wands away! Someone could so easily be hurt--"

"Lucius is injured," snaps Narcissa, her gaze flicking between the two other women. "I won't put my wand down until my sister--"

"Go on, try it!" Bellatrix retorts, grinning madly.

It takes quite some time for Agatha to calm everyone else down. Lucius doesn't enjoy being attacked and humiliated in his own house. He doesn't like it at _all_.

He glowers at Bellatrix even when the fight is ostensibly over, when they're discussing this like rational, civilized gentlemen and noble ladies, and he's telling her all the things that she's done wrong:

"Every death on our side is a victory for the Ministry." He flicks his wand to emphasize the point, and she mimics him without really intending to, twitching her wand up and down and blowing another unfortunate butterfly to bits. She stares at him, wide-eyed and uncomprehending, lips slightly parted, and he knows perfectly well: _Bellatrix knows this. But she doesn't...understand._ "You don't want that, do you?" She shakes her head, formulating some mad objection, and he adds, hastily, before she can speak, "Your strategies are suicide, Bellatrix. Not for you, personally--though it may come to that, if it has to--but for your fellow purebloods, and for the true Wizarding nation."

"The Aurors died," she snarls.

"They would have been killed without your interference," he replies, as calmly as he can manage; Bellatrix _gets_ to people. She's _annoying_. Lucius longs to give her a good smack. He sublimates his urges as best he can: if he angers her, really angers her, there will be one fewer Malfoy in the world. "Do you really think the Death Eaters are incompetent?"

She shakes her head, and her face contorts as if she's in bed with Lucius, and loathing it, while she listens to him argue.

"No," he continues, "we have better men on our side...until you kill them, that is. Dear, dear."

"You accuse me?" she asks again.

"I think," he says, "that I have a duty to accuse you."

"You think," she echoes, "that you can judge me? _You_," she says, disgust dripping from her perfect lips and tongue, "Lucius! What are you to the Dark Lord? What right have you to decide who lives and who dies?"

Lucius is regretting having this conversation. "I have more right than you," he informs her.

Bellatrix demonstrates her insanity, perhaps better than she ever has before, when she smiles. Inappropriate affect: it's a symptom of the worst kinds of madness. "If they couldn't defend themselves," she says, "if they die with one spell--_one spell_, Lucius! _Look_!" Her wand jumps in her hand, and fiery death comes for another butterfly. It's a very bad day for insects in Lucius Malfoy's garden. "One spell," she whispers, grinning. "If they're that weak, that pathetic...why? Why keep them alive? What use are they to the Dark Lord? Better," she adds, and her knuckles go white, clenched on her beloved wand, "that they die at the hands of a pureblood! Better that I kill them, and the Aurors with them, then that they are taken by the Aurors, tortured, made to tell--_why keep them alive, Lucius?_"

Under the exquisite sleeve of her expensive silk robes, her Dark Mark burns reflexively at the thought. Some women lust after love, or 'mere' affection, or a good screw. Bellatrix finds murder and torture and atrocity _much_ more satisfying.

Lucius stares at her, and his chalk-white skin tone is a biological impossibility. So melodramatic, Lucius Malfoy. He's longing to say it, itching to tell her: _Bellatrix, you're insane._ "Bellatrix," he says, slowly, disbelievingly, "when our men die, _they don't come back_."

"You just figured that out, did you?" says Bellatrix, pretending to look shocked. "Did Roddy finally explain it to you?"

"Took him a while to get it," Rodolphus replies, playing along. They exchange another knowing little glance. Lucius watches them, perfectly aware, all the time, that he could probably kill at least one of them if he strikes _now_. They just don't care.

"Enough," says Narcissa in a voice like the Dementor's Kiss, and the Lestranges take the hint and shut up. Rodolphus nods, perfectly chivalrous, and steps away from his wife and brother-in-law, leaning over to speak to little Agatha; Bellatrix remains facing Lucius, smirking with the certainty that she's won, and she puts her wand away. It's almost an invitation for him to blast her.

Lucius Malfoy does not take hints from the like of Bellatrix Lestrange, pureblooded or otherwise. It's not a flaw, not a bug: it's a feature. A virtue. He puts his wand away, too, and he takes a deep breath and prepares to tell her exactly why they'll need every man that they can get.

---

The suspense is killing you, I'm sure.

Bellatrix, of course, already knows. So does Rodolphus--hell, they sat up late last night, planning the whole thing with Evan Rosier over fine brandy and the house-elf's best chocolate cake. Lucius can be very condescending sometimes, and he knows she knows, and she knows he knows she knows. Agatha knows, and so does her uncle-by-marriage Edmund Wilkes. There's no end to the madness, and sometimes it seems to me that the whole Wizarding world is in on it.

The one man who doesn't know is Algernon Garvenbach, and it will go very hard with him.

Barty and Regulus are boys, even at their most depraved; they're innocent schoolboys, and they don't know a thing, but they're damn well going to find out.

---

Only now are we getting to the really good part. They've covered politics and geography, the prices at the cafe and why Regulus drinks what he does. There's nothing to see here, move along; they've said all the silly little things that people say when they can't trust one another. Summarizing their conversation would be intolerably boring, and the one point that I see fit to mention is this: Barty and Regulus are wishing, painfully, that Rabastan were sitting beside them. Rabastan, in the hospital recovering from his fit, might say the same; he's too terrified to leave the hospital bed alone, but he can't reach the wireless or his coffee. On the whole, the younger boys have the better deal.

"Excuse me," says Regulus, after Edmund has concluded a particularly interesting-but-irrelevant monologue about the rabble presently flooding the room, "Mr. Wilkes?"

"Yes?" says Evan politely, when it becomes apparent that Edmund is not going to answer.

"Mr. Rosier," Regulus corrects himself. "What does this have to do with the reason that we're here?"

"You still haven't told us," Barty says, and then retreats once more into increasingly resentful silence. His initial awe is fading fast; he was expecting _something_ more than drinks and idle chitchat.

Evan chuckles, smiling at Barty as if they've known each other all their lives. "Oh, yes. Thank you for reminding me." He turns to Edmund. "You never told them, Edmund. Shame on you." He clucks his tongue. "But," he adds, swiveling to face the boys once again, "you're quite wrong in assuming that these Muggles have nothing to do with why we're here."

The silence is almost painful. Everyone wants to speak; no one dares breathe. Evan has the whole of their attention, and he revels in it, drawing it out, keeping them on the edge of their seats wondering: _what does he know? What will he say? Who's he going to damn? Who's he going to save? What does he want them for? Why does he bother?_

And, dear boys, don't you already know?

"I brought you here," Evan says at last, "to show you...Muggles. Nothing more, nothing"(he smiles) "_less_; just Muggles. Going about their lives."

Regulus and Barty stare in unison, and they feel _tricked._ Led on. As if something important was coming.

"You told us," says Regulus, "that you would tell us something important, Mr. Rosier."

"Something about the war," Barty says quietly. He's been figuring it out all this time, with that clever little mind he inherited from Daddy. "Isn't that it?"

"Sharp, aren't you?" Edmund drains his beer, thumping it back onto the table. The spell should be broken, and that should be it, but it isn't; Barty and Regulus keep staring. The poor sods. "He isn't going to tell you anything, Crouch. _Really_. You're a little boy."

Barty is pissed. He went through all this, thinking that he was important enough to be told; _they aren't going to tell me! They _lied _to me! They know and they aren't telling me!_ He stands up sharply. "Come on, Regulus."

Regulus doesn't get it at first. "What are you _doing,_ Barty?" he gasps, and Barty glares back at him:

"I'm leaving, moron!" He softens almost immediately, holding Regulus's gaze. "They don't have anything we want to hear."

"Perhaps not such a little boy after all," observes Evan. Regulus rather agrees with him.

Somehow or other they get Barty back into his seat. Regulus keeps shooting him reproachful looks, and Evan prefers to pretend that Barty's little outburst never happened.

Edmund, however, has other ideas. "You don't think we take you seriously," he says abruptly, several minutes after Evan has engaged Regulus in quiet conversation. Barty starts to reply, but Edmund cuts him off. "Well, you're right. We don't."

"Then why am I here?" Barty asks, stating the obvious.

Edmund's lips twist, and I suppose that that _might_ be a smile, interpreted creatively. "I don't know why you're here."  
That, by all standards including mine, is a completely unsatisfactory answer. And you, Edmund Wilkes, you stupid fuck, you know it is.

Barty's had enough of this game. He wants answers. He wants to be in on the big secret.

"You're lying," he says.

"Oh?"

"You're lying," he says again, more loudly. His hand is curling into a fist around his wand, and he can feel his skin stretch around his bony knuckles as his muscles prepare to whip it out; it doesn't occur to him in the slightest that Edmund's reticence reminds him of his distant father, but that is in fact what is happening. Poor Barty.

"Am I?" asks Edmund. He cocks his head, smiling in a fashion that promises pain. "You--a kid, barely fifteen, entirely dependent on your famous father's reputation to get things done for you--think you know what I'm doing when I haven't the foggiest damned idea why I'm sitting in a dive talking to Barty Crouch's troubled kid? Why I'm wasting time with this when I could be, I don't know, getting something done in the world? Making a difference? Screwing my wife?" He snaps his fingers, emphasizing the last three words, and it's Barty's fault that he doesn't find it funny in the slightest. "Well, she's ugly anyway," he adds after a pause. "So on the whole, I'm better off here."

"Don't mock me," says Barty through clenched teeth.

"Why are _you_ here, then?"

Barty has no answer to that one. He listens:

"Sitting in a dive, with me, longing to jinx me to pieces; what's in it for you? Shouldn't you be out there" (Edmund gestures to the door) "in the sunshine, learning to kiss a girl?" He's Edmund Wilkes, and he can't resist digging the knife a little deeper: "Isn't that what happened to your father?"

Barty looks away. "Don't say that."

Edmund smirks, watching Barty's inner turmoil, and it's a struggle for him to remember exactly _why_ he's here and what he's trying to do. "Not very proud of your father, are you?"

Barty's response is as physiological as psychological; his heart rate soars, and for a moment he could swear that his viscera just imploded. No, he isn't proud of his father, though he couldn't tell you exactly why. Political grounds? Hardly. _Those_ thoughts are in Barty's head, true, but they're only the faintest echoes of what they will become, and he can barely feel them on his mental landscape. He resents his father's occupation, more than anything: being an Auror, the leader of all the Aurors, answering only to the department head, is a glorious job indeed, but it doesn't leave one much time for children.

Theodosia was Bartemius's secretary. Their romance, such as it was, was carried on entirely in the workplace.

Barty was an afterthought.

"Why are you asking me these things?" he snaps. Edmund waits. And then: "no. I'm not."

Satisfied at last, Edmund leans back. "I," he proclaims, "am not very pleased with your father, either."

"Oh, really?"

"Not everyone is, Crouch." _Don't play dumb_, Edmund thinks, his good mood evaporating.

"That's news to me," says Barty, and he makes sure that Edmund doesn't miss the sarcasm.

Edmund raises his eyebrows. "You think you're the only one qualified to have an opinion about your dear dad?"

"Maybe," returns Barty, "you don't know what you're talking about--"

"Barty," Regulus cuts in, squeezing his friend's hand under the table. "Don't."

Barty squeezes back, and their eyes meet for a second. Barty swallows, and his eyes drop to the table and remain there. There goes his moment.

"Pathetic," snorts Edmund, and he signals the waitress for another beer. Regulus glares at him on Barty's behalf; Barty wants to cry, or to hit something, or to drop dead.

"Now, now," Evan says amiably. "What's all this? We were getting along so nicely just a minute ago, boys--"

Edmund slams his fist on the table, making them all jump. "It's over," he snaps. "I can't talk to this boy. He's stubborn, self-centered, moody; he prefers to wallow in his misery rather than try to talk to anyone; all he wants to do is whine about his dad! I'm through with this kid, Evan--"

Go on, Edmund! Let's hear it! And shut up about Bartemius if you don't want to hear about him!

"Fair enough," says Evan. "But," he adds when Edmund, this time, rises to leave, "I'm staying, and I'm going to continue talking to Master Black. I'd prefer that you stay here with me. You don't have to talk to Barty if you don't want to," he finishes with a hint of a smirk.

Edmund sulks.

Poor bastard.

_Stuck here with the Muggles_, he thinks. _Waiting for Evan to finish his goddamn conversation--what does he want to know, anyway, the kid's bedtime?_

_What am I _supposed _to do? The boy isn't Death Eater material; hell, I'd be laughed out of the ranks if I tried to bring the Dark Lord the little bastard. He whines, he bitches, he sulks. What did I ever see in him?_

_God, when we take the Ministry, Barty Crouch might be the first one against the wall, but I'll make damn sure that his son comes next. Good riddance._

Wise words indeed.

"You," he says, leaning over, "are wasting my time."

"Sorry," says Barty indifferently. "You asked me to come here, Mr. Wilkes," he adds with a hint of condemnation. "You thought I might be worth something."

"And damn it, I was wrong."

"Yes, you were," mutters Barty. "I'm just a whiny little troublemaker, aren't I?"

"I don't want to hear about your personal problems," says Edmund.

Barty stares at the wall. He doesn't know what to say. _What did I see in him? How could I ever have thought he wanted me?_

_He wanted someone else all along. I'm not special enough for him, am I?_

_I'll never find out why I came here, will I?_

_He is nothing. Wilkes is nothing._

We interrupt this angst to bring you something more interesting. Frankly, young Barty, I don't give a flying fuck what your daddy thinks of you. You brought it on yourself.

---

"Unfortunately for all of us," Lucius finishes, the end of a monologue that you don't get to hear, "the Dark Lord's plans have been thrown off schedule by your...unfortunate actions of late."

The Lestranges glance at each other. Putting Avery in the hospital was _fun_. Everyone hates Avery. Where's the downside? Personally, I think that it was quite justified. But then, I'm a sick, sad sadist. Just like Bellatrix.

"You mean the thing with Avery," says Rodolphus at last.

Lucius nods. "Jonathan Avery's assistance--"

"Assistance!" shrieks Bellatrix suddenly. "When has Avery ever been of use to us?"

Here we go again.

Lucius goes through all of it again; he is, once more, beginning to lose patience with Bellatrix. She's _obviously_ doing this on purpose, just to annoy him.

Lucius is a master of psychology, and yet he falls for her bait. So sad.

"Can you not do it without Mr. Avery?" asks Agatha after Lucius pauses for breath. I'll answer for him: no, they can't do it without Avery. Avery is secretly an amazing tactical genius and Albus Dumbledore's true equal. Without Avery, the Dark forces are doomed.

You idiot.

"Technically," says Lucius, "we could. And we will."

"'Course we will," Rodolphus growls. "We're the fucking Death Eaters!"

Lucius chooses to ignore the interruption, and the slight upon Agatha's and Narcissa's honor. _They're _no Death Eaters. The Death Eaters have standards.

"But," he drawls, not looking at Rodolphus, "that does not mean that the Dark Lord is pleased with you, Bellatrix. He isn't pleased at _all_..."

Bellatrix's ashy skin turns red. Blood on snow. "He speaks to you--he _speaks_ to _you_--of me--he says nothing of this to me--"

"He's making it up," says Rodolphus, putting an arm around her shoulders. "You're the Dark Lord's favorite, Bella, everyone knows that." If there's resentment in his black heart, he hides it pretty well. There are upsides to living your life with an emotionless monotone. The lies and the truth seem equally badly acted.

"_Really_," says Narcissa sarcastically.

Rodolphus glares at her.

"What about Rosier and Wilkes?" he asks. "Dark Lord isn't pissed off at them, is he?"

"They," says Lucius, "unlike yourself, have been working to replace Jonathan Avery."

Bellatrix screams with laughter.

Lucius gives her a thin-lipped smile. "You may laugh, Bellatrix...if my information is correct, they're chasing someone quite valuable, someone who will--ah-_assist_ the Dark Lord more than poor Avery ever did. And they're quite close to getting him, too. So they say."  
"Who?" chirps Agatha, wide-eyed. Her hands are clasped together as if in prayer.

"Rodolphus's crippled brother," Lucius says. "Rabastan Lestrange."

Rodolphus's jaw drops.

"**HE WANTS RABASTAN?**"

It's a testament to the power of this revelation that Rodolphus is capable of saying it in a dramatic and shocked tone of voice. Though it's really quite obvious.

Who writes this crap, anyway?

"I knew that you wouldn't take it well," says Lucius.

"Take it well? TAKE IT WELL? He's my fucking brother! My _fucking brother!_"

"Don't use _that_ language," snaps Narcissa.

"Rabastan's my goddamned brother! He's seventeen!"

"I was sixteen," says Bellatrix with hints of pride.

"He's a fucking kid--a goddamned kid!--and he's crippled!" Rodolphus just smoked his fifteenth cigarette of the day; it could be lung cancer, not emotion, that is choking him as he snarls like a rabid bear. "Why does the Dark Lord want him? WHY THE HELL DOES THE DARK LORD WANT HIM? He's useless! Fucking poof, little goddamned pansy!" (If Rabastan were here, he might object; not to being called crippled, or useless, but to the implications about his sexual preference.) "Hell, he's _nothing_! What's he good for?" Rodolphus laughs, a painful sound: "He's a fucking projectile!"

Narcissa watches silently, and Agatha averts her eyes. Bellatrix snickers at the 'projectile' comment (she'll never forget that one), and her face is burning with a sort of fierce Death Eater pride. Lucius winces at the profanity and the emotional hurricane. No one interrupts him.

Rodolphus snatches Lucius's arm, dragging him closer; Lucius doesn't dig his heels in, doesn't struggle, but he makes a point of walking with some dignity. Rodolphus yanks clumsily at his sleeve, pulling it up. "Look at that!" he roars. "LOOK AT IT! You see that? You know what that means? Think Malfoy here wants to die for the Dark Lord?"

"If it's unavoidable," says Lucius through clenched teeth. "Only if it's unavoidable."

"Unavoidable, yeah, right! I'd be honored--Bella'd be honored--" Rodolphus is gasping for breath, and his eyes are wild. "To die for him! Like I fucking lived--for him! For the Dark Lord! He can have me...can have my fucking dead body..."

"He might get that sooner than he thinks," mutters Lucius.

"_Don't_," says Agatha.

"I love him," breathes Rodolphus, and his face is transformed; there should be an operatic chorus somewhere, but there's nothing for Rodolphus but the stares of the philistines. "I'd do anything for him. He can take me...he can have me...and Bella...but he's _not getting my Rabastan_!" he finishes suddenly, and he glares at them all, as if daring them to comment.

"Quite a performance," says Lucius.

Bellatrix doesn't want to believe this. _Rodolphus?_ Her Rodolphus? Unwilling to give up his baby brother for the sake of the Dark Lord? _You've always been too attached to the boy_, she thinks viciously. _Sick, filthy, wrong--incest! You're a stupid fool if you think that we can't see it--I should have killed little Rabastan, when I could...Rodolphus! The last man I would have expected to do this to the Dark Lord._

_To me._

"Rodolphus," she snarls, and Agatha whimpers. "Rodolphus the traitor. The filthy traitor. What a fitting husband for me, what luck that I met you--" Her head jerks like a marionette's, and her black hair cascades. She's never been more beautiful to him. Or to me. God, Bellatrix, you don't _know_ how much we all want to fuck you before you kill us. "Rodolphus! Damn you, Rodolphus--you love me! You dare to touch me! _You_, traitor--you desire me!" Yes, I would say that he does. Look at him. Anger, betrayal, despair, lust. "You aren't worthy of me," she spits. "You can't have me."

Rodolphus mentally compares her to Carmen; Bellatrix, he decides, is preferable. _She's more than a bitch--she's the Dark Lord's fucking general. And she's mad as hell, of course. Can't get much more passionate than that._

It isn't masochism, or not entirely, but it'll do as a comparison point.

Then again, she hurt Rabastan so badly, and Rodolphus is in such constant danger of losing his precious bollocks to her rages, that perhaps it's a fitting word after all.

He takes a deep breath. "Fine," he growls, his facial muscles writhing with a thousand mad emotions. "Fine. Don't let me fuck you, then. Leave me, then. Draft Rabastan, kill Rabastan, do whatever the fuck you want.

Think I could probably kill you if I had to. Nice little tragedy there. Blood, tears, love, necrophilia--" He sees Lucius and Narcissa's faces, and he grins so darkly that I don't doubt that he'd do it. "See how far I'll go for you?"

"You revolt me," she whispers.

"Never said I didn't. That's never stopped you before."

She doesn't want to look at him, but she does, and even through her rage, she half-wants to smile back at him. His smile, his dead eyes, his threats: all for mad, broken love, an operatic tragedy in three acts, and Bellatrix comes closer, when he's in this mood, to loving him than she ever will otherwise. He's a _madman_.

"Prove to me," she rasps, so quietly that it's meant for him alone, "that you are a loyal servant of the Dark Lord."

"Tonight. I'll do it, Bella. Fuckers won't know what hit them."

"And if you fail, if the Aurors take you, I won't lift my wand to stop them--"

"Never wanted you to," he growls.

It's a love story, of a kind, and this is their romantic moment. It's better than a kiss. She cares enough about him to postpone her decision; their love hinges on his love for the Dark Lord. And we all know that the Dark Lord and the Lestranges, if they're a love triangle, are a very specific kind: A loves B. B loves C.

A loves C with all his heart.

C couldn't care less.

"What are they saying, Lucius?" Narcissa says in a furious undertone. She knows she shouldn't, but she can't help it; the Lestranges are such an odd couple.

Lucius shakes his head mutely. He'd never admit it--proud Lucius! Stupid Lucius!--but he has absolutely no idea.

They stand there, poised for a kiss, her fingers caressing his bearded chin; she gives him a hard shove and steps away, trying to negate the implications. Bellatrix thinks that she can wash away what's passed between them so damned _easily_. Rodolphus knows better. Possibly, anyway; there's a fifty-fifty chance that he doesn't know anything at all.

"So," says Lucius, pulling the conversation back onto a plane he understands, "I am to understand that you object to Rabastan's candidacy?"

"He's _crippled_," mutters Rodolphus, and he reflexively touches the point on his face that her fingers jabbed. "He wouldn't last five minutes..._five goddamn minutes_...God," he says quietly, and he forgets, for a second, that the rest of the world is there, "Rabastan's never going to be a Death Eater. What the fuck can I do?"

The helplessness in his eyes is painful. Agonizing. He stares at nothing, and I'm screaming for him to stop, because _I don't want to feel sympathy for Rodolphus Lestrange_. Even bastards love their brothers. Even evil men want to see the dead baby bird get up and fly. He's imagined Rabastan, proud and strong and whole, in the ranks of the Death Eaters--the elite of Rodolphus's world--so many times. Rabastan as he should have been: tall, muscular, handsome, clever, with a glint in his eye; women swoon when he walks by. Rabastan as he is: frail, undersized, effeminate, and mad, afraid of his own shadow, resentful and cold, over before he ever had a chance. Rabastan the genetic dead end. Rabastan the runt of the litter. Mother Nature's way of ensuring that the worst of the Lestranges' genes get neatly weeded out in the form of a man who will never, ever father a child. Rabastan the opposite of everything the Death Eaters stand for; Rabastan the pathetic last gasp of a pureblood family that should have died out long ago. The last nail in the coffin. Reality's final attack on Rodolphus's dreams.

The boy's not human. He's a statistic. Ninety per cent of children with half of Rabastan's afflictions die within their first year. Half of those are stillborn. Almost all are purebloods. No one's ever seen Rabastan's particular condition before, but perhaps it doesn't matter what it is. He's evil, sadistic, warped; inbreeding, bitterness, and fear have left him a monster. Life dealt the Lestrange brothers a bad hand. There's nothing for it but execution. No matter what Rodolphus feels, no matter how pathetic Rabastan is, they both deserve to die.

Don't cry. It isn't sad.

I don't feel sorry for deluded Rodolphus. I can't cry for a twisted little minger like Rabastan. I feel nothing for them.

_Nothing at all._

Rodolphus doesn't hear much of the conversation that follows. Uncharacteristically tactful, Lucius abandons the subject of Rabastan, moving instead to possible alternatives:

"Please, if you'd allow me to suggest it, Mr. Malfoy, have you considered, begging your pardon, Mr. Malfoy--"  
"Get on with it," says Lucius.

"--converting those men inside the Ministry to your cause?" Agatha cocks her head, smiling hopefully.

"Many times," says Lucius, and there goes that idea.

"My cousin Regulus," Bellatrix suggests some time later, "would be a great asset to the Dark Lord, were he to take Rabastan's place." She corrects herself when Narcissa glares at her: "His own _rightful_ place, as a Black and a pureblood--"

However, Bellatrix has once again missed the point. Narcissa doesn't object to her _discounting_ little Regulus, necessarily; she objects, rather, to him being mentioned at all. "Not Regulus!" she gasps. "He's too _young_, Bella!"

"He's talented," says Bellatrix dismissively. "You think, then, that the Dark Lord should not be allowed the benefit of his service?"

"In a few years," Narcissa says, blanching. "Not _now_!"

"He _would_ be useful," drawls Lucius, "very useful indeed, were he to join..."

"Then I see no room for argument!" Bellatrix snaps. "Your husband agrees with me!"

Narcissa can't argue with _that_.

---

If the Dark Lord has sunk so low as to take pathetic little boys like Regulus, I think we know how this story is going to end. Draco Malfoy will be the death of Voldemort's army...whenever Lucius and Narcissa get around to conceiving him.

As it is, Regulus is their best hope. Barty would be more useful, certainly, but, happily, he's currently too resentful and self-absorbed to realize that this is what he's wanted all along. Evan has established a sickening rapport with Regulus; Edmund and Barty are barely on speaking terms, after knowing one another for all of two hours. Charisma is highly underrated in this business.

"So," says Edmund in a bored voice, "you agree that the Wizarding community needs to change."

"Right," says Barty.

"As such, it wouldn't be too much for me to expect that you might have some idea of _what,_ exactly, needs to be changed, or how you plan to do it?"

"That's not for me to decide," Barty mutters, and briefly wonders _why_ it isn't his decision. It _should _be. Important political matters are left to disturbed fifteen-year-olds as a matter of course.

"_Right_."

"Don't mock me." Barty's blond hair is falling into his eyes, cutting across his glare like prison bars.

"You're clever, boy. Really, you are. A damn sight smarter than _him_," (Edmund jerks his thumb irritably in Evan's direction) "or your little friend. You could do a lot in this war...whichever side you choose. We might all be taking orders from Barty Crouch, if you get off your arse, stop complaining, and make some of those changes you're talking about..."

His words hit Barty like a well-aimed _Avada Kedavra_. There go his sensibilities. Barty the war hero, Barty the leader of the revolution, Barty the grown man everyone respects...it's a seductive image. He sees himself, tall, strong, and commanding, the man he might be in a few years--the man Rabastan can never be, the man even Regulus can't measure up to--and his adolescent ego swells to bursting point. _I matter_, he thinks. _I could be more powerful than anyone. More powerful than Father_. And Edmund has him.

"And if I don't?"

I never said that Edmund has him right _now_. The seed of discontent takes six to eight months to sprout. If watered correctly.

This war is a flood.

"Then," says Edmund, smirking darkly--he's _so_ funny--"we'll all be taking orders from Barty Crouch."

Barty laughs despite himself, then grimaces.

"We already are, Mr. Wilkes."

"There you go, then. There's your incentive. Personally..." Pause. "I'd rather that it was you."

Barty sits silent and motionless. _'I'd rather that it was you.' 'I'd rather that it was you.' He wants me. He likes me._

_Can't he make up his mind?_

_He's lying to me. He just wants me on his side. He doesn't give a damn about who I am or what I can do._

_I can live with that. _

_I'm so stupid, running sobbing into the arms of the first liar who shows me any compassion._

_But still...'I'd rather that it was you.'_

"Most of us would," says Regulus, looking up. "I think we're ready to leave, Barty?"

Barty nods. "Thank you for the drinks, Mr. Rosier," he says, feeling strangely wanted, and, just as much, as if he doesn't exist at all. He's floating on a tide of appreciation, and he hates it and loves it. He can't look at Edmund, but the words are playing stupidly through his mind: _I'd rather that it was you._

"The offer remains open," says Evan, and Regulus smiles.

Barty wonders.

Look at him, and you'll see an innocent little boy. Listen to his mind, and you'll hear a Death Eater in the making. Don't you pity me now?

They have time to visit Rabastan again on the way home. He's been drugged to the gills, and his ravings have been controlled...mostly.

"The bastards," he says, weakly, after hearing their story. "Don't listen to them, boys...they're...they only want..."

And he conveniently falls asleep.

Regulus and Barty exchange glances, and then, for your benefit, dear readers, they tuck him in. Regulus touches his withered hand. Barty runs his hand through his lank hair.

He sobs in his sleep.

---

What does Barty want?

Power.

What does Regulus want?

Whatever his parents tell him to want.

What does Rabastan want?

To be a _real_ man.

What does Rodolphus want?

Bloodshed.

What does Bellatrix want?

Bloodshed _for the Dark Lord_.

What does Agatha want?

She'll wait to see how it all turns out before making any firm decisions.

What does Lucius want?

Power and privilege.

What does Narcissa want?

A peaceful, pampered existence.

What does Bartemius want?

Law and order.

What does Garvenbach want?

Living through this hell would be first on his list.

What do I want?

I want them all to die painfully. Thanks for asking.

---

**If you read all of that mess, you are a better person than I.**

**Have a drink. They're free because they're metaphorical and thus cannot actually be drunk. On the other hand, they're low-calorie and nonalcoholic.**

**Have a review, while you're at it.**


	9. Chapter 9: When in Doubt, Burn the Witch

**Disclaimer: This disclaimer has absolutely no legal weight whatsoever and is included largely because there have been disclaimers on all of the other chapters.**

**Disclaimer Disclaimer: This disclaimer is quite stupid.**

**Disclaimer Disclaimer Disclaimer: The above attempt to magically make an unfunny disclaimer funny by pointing out how unfunny it is is unfunny.**

**Disclaimer Disclaimer Disclaimer Disclaimer: Please don't sue.**

**A/N: Well, here we go with another bitter, vitriolic chapter that no one will read because they're tired of having their fandom insulted by a so-called fan who puts more effort into mocking her own story in the A/N than she does into writing the damn thing, which is why it comes off as a pathetic attempt at saying 'take that' to yonder Pit of Voles (instead of an actual fanfiction with plot and everything, and interesting characterizations, and possibly a chapter without the sociopathic narrator insulting everything within range) , filled with many interesting 'literary' devices such as repeatedly mocking the fact that Chekhov's gun is still hanging on the wall after being introduced in chapter two, seemingly killed, reintroduced in chapter seven, and vanishing entirely...in other words, a cornucopia of FAIL.**

**Perfectly accurate charges, I must say. This chapter will be a bit different, largely because something actually happens, instead of the characters leading up to it and then deciding that it isn't worth the trouble after all.**

**Self-deprecation is funny, except when I do it.**

_**(And then Slytherite was shot by her former readers.)**_

**Warnings: Character death (though no one, y'know, **_**interesting**_** bites it), Very Bad Words, violence, blood, potentially disturbing battle scene, may contain nutters, Slytherite mocking her fanbase, disturbing sexual...ish... imagery, xenophobia, attempted suicide, incestuous moments, **_**how did this bloody thing get so long?**_

**Things That You Know You Want To See: Rodolphus and Bellatrix kill people. There is witty **_**repartee**_**, for a given value of "witty". A house burns down. The readers briefly forget that Rodolphus and Bellatrix are a couple in name only.**

**---**

When wizards go to war, they leave behind them a bloody, bloody mess. They're far more efficient killers than Muggles, for all their savagery and nuclear weapons, could ever hope to be. And Lucius Malfoy, of all people (who would ever accuse him of caring about _his_ soldiers' lives?), said it best a chapter ago: _when our men_, or any men, _die, they don't come back._ So much for the futile hopes of the Death Eaters; they're so easy to kill, and so hard to replace.

Who gives a damn about Death Eaters? They're murderers, torturers, serial offenders against the human race. They're walking pieces of moral decay. You aren't allowed to like them, and God help us if you do. Except for Snape. Snape is half-blooded, and he's tragic, and he's _good_; Snape can't be a _real_ Death Eater, by any standard that you care to name, and he's a world away from Bellatrix Lestrange.

Who gives a damn about civilians? Aurors are worth worrying about; Aurors might save all our sorry arses someday. But civilians are statistics, casualties, accidental spells fired into a mass of struggling bodies. They're extra paperwork. Nothing more. Five minutes of aggravation for Bartemius, and a nasty memory for the widow and the newly-liberated kids. The Ministry really _will_ have to put together a reserve fund for funerals.

'Kill them all,' says Bartemius.

'Kill them all,' says Bellatrix.

_God will know his own._

---

It's been almost a week since Bellatrix and Evan made their careful plans.

"Supper's ready, Dad!" yells Algernon Garvenbach's son, poking his head into the study. He has no identifying characteristics, nor does he need them; they can damn well put _NAMELESS VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES_ on his casket. But he's important to Garvenbach, so our hero puts down his pipe, sighs fondly and shakes his head, and leaves his paperwork on his desk.

He means to check the security spells on the way downstairs, but he doesn't want to scare his son, and as it happens he never has a chance to do it surreptitiously. The poor bastard cares more about his son's mental security than about his bloody _life_. The omission nags at him throughout the meal, but he tries as hard as he can to eat a normal supper and live a normal life: _after all_, he thinks, _what are the odds that Death Eaters are going to attack _tonight_, of all nights?_

You know the answer to that question already.

"Dear," says Mrs. Garvenbach, "you look a little pale. Are you all right?"

Garvenbach freezes in the act of cutting his steak. "Do I?" he asks, and he smiles at her concern. "No, darling, nothing's wrong..."

"Are you going to kiss in front of us?" groans the nameless victim, who _could_, I suppose, be ten. If you think that it would be more tragic that way.

Garvenbach chuckles, and reaches across the table to touch his wife's hand.

"Charming," says their daughter, downing her pumpkin juice. "Really charming, Dad." She stands up, and Garvenbach marvels at her height: she's only fourteen, _far_ too young to be slaughtered like a pig, but then, the Death Eaters might not be able to tell. She _looks_ twenty at least. It's all the little slag's fault for wearing makeup. "I'll be in my room if anyone wants me," she calls over her shoulder as she races upstairs. "Doing my homework," she adds pointedly, and then corrects herself a second later: "Unless Alfie calls!"

"Don't tie up the Floo Network again, dear," says Mrs. Garvenbach absently. "Your father might need it."

Garvenbach heaves a massive sigh. "If Barty Crouch calls, tell him I'm not home. That goes for anyone in his office, too--"

"You're too hard on that bloke, Dad," says Garvenbach's son. "He can't be that bad, can he?"

"Yes, he can," says Garvenbach, and he takes a bite of steak. "He's the worst part of the job."

Mrs. Garvenbach smiles, shaking her head wordlessly. _Men._

Bartemius may be a heartless workaholic, but, unlike his superior, he has some basic understanding of _security_.

---

"All right, does everyone here understand the plan?"

Evan Rosier, masked, robed, and ready to kill, taps the diagrams with his wand. The spidery ink lines blaze with color, standing out in the dark room; glowing blobs of red and green chase each other around the parchment. It's appealing, aesthetically pleasing, neatly organized, and nothing at all like a real battlefield.

Pinned to the dusty wall, overlapping each other like the peeling scales of a long-shed snakeskin, the sheets of parchment mark out Algernon Garvenbach's neighborhood. His happy home is center stage. And, to make sure that even the stupidest and most inbred warriors understand the target, a photograph of Garvenbach, neatly clipped from the _Daily Prophet_, blinks out at them all, and Evan's flowery handwriting blossoms across his face:

_TARGET  
ALGERNON GARVENBACH  
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF MAGICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT  
TO BE ELIMINATED_

The Death Eaters, an indistinct mass of rustling black robes and faceless, inhuman black masks, pump their fists and scream in unison. Evan smiles beneath his own mask, and the platform creaks as he takes a step forward, sending eddies of dust spiraling out over his comrades. Their eyes are hidden by their masks, and he has no idea who he's leading, who hears him, who he will send to their deaths. But all the same, he can feel their gazes on him, watching him, _wanting _him to say more, _more_, _**more**_, more about this man Garvenbach and his crimes, this man Garvenbach whom they are going to kill. The candles seem to sputter around him, some physical manifestation of what he feels: under his robes, his skin crackles, and little pulses of excitement race through his heart and brain. Adrenaline pumps, testosterone flows. Evan can taste the scent of their robes in the air, biting and sour, and the sickly sweet smell of the dust and the rotting wood around them merges with it and rips into his tongue. He sees everything around him, beige and brown and sepia and omnipresent black, and he takes it all in, and he can _feel_ the importance of the moment. The importance of Evan Rosier in the moment. Evan Rosier, strategist, propagandist, man of the hour. They want to hear what he has to say. He can feel their stares, and their excitement at the thought of killing, and he can do no wrong.

He joins them, leading them, riding the wave of their arousal, pumping his fist like a conductor.

"DEATH EATERS!" he yells, and his voice feels like steel, smooth, liquid, alive--

"DEATH EATERS!" they scream back. They dance to his tune, they listen to his commands, and everything he does is right; their faceless bodies are an extension of his own, pulling at him, calling him to join them, to be one of them, to _kill_ with them, and he isn't sure who is more powerful, him or them--

--they're like the moon and the tides, rolling out, rolling in, pulling, always pulling, wrapped up in an inescapable rhythm--

"DEATH EATERS!"

"DEATH EATERS!"

"What are we?"

"DEATH EATERS!"

Yes. We know.

"Who do we kill?

"MUDBLOODS!"

"THAT'S RIGHT!" bellows Evan. They're _with_ him now, he can feel the crackle and pulse of their energy, and he keeps them going, putting them through their paces, sustaining the dance. God, it's better than sex. This is the only power trip that Evan Rosier gets. "We're the goddamn Death Eaters! And who do we serve?"

"THE DARK LORD!" they chant. "THE DARK LORD!"

_If only the Dark Lord were here_, thinks Evan. _He would love this._ "Now," he says, stepping to the very edge of the platform, looking out over the vast black sea of their masks as they look up to see his face, feeling almost seasick as he watches them move on currents of his own inescapable power, "this is what we're going to do..."

---

Upstairs, alone, rapt in contemplation of himself and himself alone, the Dark Lord Voldemort hears them. At first he's annoyed--_how dare they disturb me with their inconsequential, stupid, mortal things? When they cannot _begin _to understand why I require solitude, absolute solitude, and peace for my experiments_. He cuts deeper, and tries to block it out, but it keeps coming, unstoppable, invading the sanctum he's built for himself, and his hand shakes as he works. He floats back to the surface of ordinary, mundane reality, and as soon as he realizes that what he had is gone, so very gone, his annoyance turns to rage. _How dare they?_ He can almost ignore the pain, no matter how mutilated he is, and he barely stops to close the wound; he closes it badly, it leaks, Voldemort's blood drains onto the floor as he storms from his room. It leaves a trail along the floor, red and glutinous, and in the shadows it looks almost like a snake--

How fitting, he might think, if he bothered to notice it at all.

He moves like a snake, slithering down to the meeting room, bursting in:

"SILENCE!" he screams, and their renewed chanting stops at once. They _try_ to go silent, they really do, and they fail miserably: a stream of chittering spreads across the room, unidentifiable, intolerable, and Voldemort's eyes blaze red as he hears it.

They stare at the cuts he's made, and the changes he's made, and they wonder if they've ever really seen him at all. There is a collective intake of breath, and a few of the weakest long to be sick.

But they would never dare.

Is _this_ what their Lord has become?

A bubble of blood spreads across his face and bursts. He licks it off with a tongue that seems more snake than human, and the thin opalescent membranes that cling to his melted lips make me wonder: is this the man that the Death Eaters kill for? Their crimes are in the service of _this_ monstrosity? They think of him when they torture and rape and burn, and they think of him with love and respect?

Voldemort the figurehead. How pathetic.

"My Lord," gasps Evan, desperately struggling to keep his eyes in the general vicinity of his beloved master, "tonight...we have planned it...we will bring you the head of Algernon Garvenbach..."

Voldemort nods slowly, imperceptibly. "Do so," he says, "and you will be honored greatly, beyond what you could imagine."

Evan's blue eyes widen involuntarily, and he takes a long breath. "Thank you, my Lord...thank you so much..."

"Enough," rasps Voldemort. "Do not interrupt me. Do not disturb me. You see now what I have done, while I hide myself away?"

"_Master_," breathes Bellatrix, half-rising from her seat in the first row. The rapture in her voice identifies her so easily. "Master--you astound me, Master--your powers are beyond the reach of--"

Sanity, perhaps.

"Yes, Bella," he half-whispers. "Yes."

"THE DARK LORD!" chant the masses, the lemmings, the murderers and torturers and bastards who all deserve to die. "THE DARK LORD! THE DARK LORD!" The rhythm is inhuman, military, like a heartbeat, and the Dark Lord smiles as it washes over him and builds to a crescendo, an insane crescendo that no one can stop.

They make me sick. All of them.

The Dark Lord isn't running his own war machine. No one knows where it came from, but lives will be lost trying to make it stop.

---

Evan's plans are carried out strictly to the letter, for the first five minutes. After that, the unwashed masses surrender to their own mad impulses, to the chaos and unpredictability of battle, and to the screeches of Bellatrix Lestrange, and the diagrams that Evan slaved over for hours are followed only by accident. But for now, things go well enough.

One by one, the first wave of attackers position themselves. They Apparate in as quietly as they can; Evan, the first arrival, silences the pops and bangs as his comrades appear. Like wisps of darkness, they peel away from the group, darting through the shadows and blending in all too well. You can only see them if you know that they're there. They're visible for seconds at a time, when their twitching shadows flick under lamps or, distorted, slither across the manicured suburban lawns of the pretty boulevard...

(You're welcome for the nightmares.)

Bellatrix feels weightless, like a little wisp of bodiless sadism, floating outside the window. She peeks in, watching, taking it all in: the neatly stacked piles of homework, the heavy schoolbooks strewn across the bed, the mess, the _girl_..._Look at her! Faithless, stupid, silly little thing, unknowing, unafraid, unaware--she will die! Her filthy, impure blood will paint streaks across all her worldy possessions, her screams will be the first, the first sign to her dear parents that anything's wrong...and when they come in to see her...we will attack..._If Bellatrix's sick desires are sexual, her vicious fantasies are the sickest perversions ever conceived. The Marquis de Sade would be appalled. Juliette, sadist to end all sadists, is nothing but a fluffy little kitten in comparison. _We will attack, we will kill, we shall exterminate the last of her disgusting kind, she will be kept alive to see her parents die, screaming all the while..._ Bellatrix clings to the window, watching, waiting, and I want to scream some kind of warning, but there's nothing I can do--

Evan gives the signal.

The glass breaks. Bellatrix is in. The girl whips around, her hair cracking and writhing with momentum, and when it clears away from her field of vision, she sees: a Death Eater, tall and menacing, the inhuman figure of her nightmares, standing on her bed, wand pointed directly at her.

The world stops. Another few seconds off her lifespan. They stare, motionless as statues. Bellatrix glares at the girl; the girl's eyes are fixed on the trembling tip of her wand. The air around her feels like chocolate syrup, thick and sticky, and her heartbeat is a slow, dull thud that couldn't _possibly_ belong to her. She takes a single, easy, unlabored breath.

The great delusion of teenagers is that they are not going to die. Let's take a moment to envy them.

The girl breathes. Her limbs don't belong to her. _Oh my God_, she thinks, and finds that that doesn't belong to her either. Someone else is about to die. Other people get killed by Death Eaters. This person could not possibly be a Death Eater, because this is her life, and Death Eaters are the stuff of nightmares, the reason her father comes home shaking and pale, and _this is not happening to me_--

Bellatrix begs to differ. "_DIE!_" she snarls, feeling her consciousness flow smoothly through her wand and drip out. Her hand shakes. She longs to kill--

The girl screams, and Bellatrix charges. They circle each other, smoothly, as if moving through molten glass. The girl falls back, slowly, slowly, twisting as she crashes to the ground. Bellatrix whips past her, sliding cleanly through the place her victim recently vacated, and she spins to face the girl too late to avoid smashing into the floor.

The grand, unified _thud_ echoes through the house. Garvenbach hears it, and, mildly concerned, horribly uninformed, he yells: "Are you all right up there?"

"DAD!" wails the girl. It's reality again, and the Death Eater is rising to her feet, poised for another attack, and Algernon Garvenbach's firstborn is going to die.

Bellatrix's wand goes off like a lightbulb bursting. She didn't entirely intend it, it wasn't what she meant to do, but isn't it enough? Light and heat and pain. The girl's world is an explosion, and she screams again as it hits her; the spell blows her backward, lifting her off the floor and sweeping her into the wall. She feels it a second before it hits, and she screams again. And again. One long continuous scream.

"_JULIE!_" Garvenbach is halfway up the stairs, his feet pounding out a crescendo in time with the cadences of the scream, and the steps fly past him as he reaches the first floor landing, and Evan Rosier explodes into existence in front of him.

"Hello, Mr. Garvenbach." He's saved this voice for the occasion, low and evil and so unlike his normal cheerful chirp, and it promises pain. Garvenbach's defensive spell almost casts itself.

"_PROTEGO_!"

Evan laughs. "Goodness gracious me, Mr. Garvenbach, I haven't even tried anything yet!" Through the slits of his mask, his eyes find Mrs. Garvenbach, at the foot of the stairs, and his smile is no less disgusting for being unseen. He blasts her under her husband's arm, she falls, and when Garvenbach turns, it's too late. Mrs. Garvenbach lies there, like a broken doll, and it's a pity that she isn't dead. Evan laughs again, and Garvenbach sees his hand move in slow motion.

"_STUPEFY!_" Garvenbach screams.

But it isn't enough. Evan blocks it with ease, and Algernon Garvenbach, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the man who has never failed at his job before, backs into a corner. Away from the door of his daughter's room. And maybe Bellatrix knows what's happening outside; Julie shrieks again, a long, high, gargling note, and Garvenbach wants to break free and run. Damn the consequences. But that will get them all killed.

The lights from their wands play across the stairwell. They dance like an aurora, this way, that way, leaping from wall to ceiling, step to step, wand to victim; isn't it beautiful? Imagine a waltz playing somewhere in the background, perhaps on a wireless that no one turned off, still tinkling out its pretty music as Julie provides a soprano note: _one_-two-three! _One-_two-three! _One_-two-three!

Mrs. Garvenbach's wounds burst in little fireworks of pain as she moves. Her muscles bleed in the same rhythm as she drags herself along: _one_-two-three! (Gasp!) _One_-two-three! (Moan!) She reaches out with her good arm, touches down on the floorboards, and pulls. The fireplace gets a little closer. She takes a deep breath, trying to ignore her lungs, and repeats: _one_-two-three! (Bleed!) The screams echo in her ears. She thinks that she can almost ignore the pain; if she really _had_ to, she knows she could _run_, she could climb the stairs and Stun the Death Eater and run, run, _run_ down the hall to her little girl's room, and fling open the door to see the monsters, and chase them away with her very presence, holding her little Julie close to her heart and swearing that she'll _never_ let go. _I could save her_, she thinks, and yet she pulls herself along, all the time aware of the pain embracing her ribs, and she holds back her tears for just long enough. Just one more pull. Just two. Her shoulders are burning or liquefying, she can't tell which. (If her pain had a flavor, it would be chili peppers.) _One_-two-three!

Bellatrix lifts her wand.

Julie becomes aware, for the first time in what feels like forever, that she is Julie Garvenbach. Fourteen years old, Hufflepuff, born to a half-blood and a Muggle-born, and human. Living, corporeal, and possessed of all the normal parts. She is a distinct entity, herself and herself alone. The boundaries of her physical self extend only to her skin, where before she could feel herself flowing out into the dusty floor and floating away into the air. Her consciousness is terrified, inane, and utterly and completely childlike and contemptible, but it's hers. She's a person again.

Under the Death Eater's spell, she was nothing but a vessel for pain, a bundle of nerves built only to register an agonized complaint. Such are the victims of the Cruciatus Curse.

For the first time, Bartemius Crouch and his zero-tolerance fanaticism are starting to make _sense_. That worries me: I have always felt that when Bartemius is the right man for the situation, the situation is one that I would rather not be in, thank you very much.

"Did you like that, girl?" whispers Bellatrix.

Julie's larynx is not in operation right now. (Please try again later, Bellatrix.) She stares at the ceiling and shakes, helpless as a child, feeling very much (insomuch as she can feel anything at all) like a large gelatin that has just gone _splat_ on the floor.

Bellatrix _knows_ that she can't say a word. She is very well informed about the physical aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse. But she _is_, after all, Bellatrix Lestrange. "You don't want me to do that again, do you?"

Julie breathes. She whimpers. She shakes her head _no_.

"Poor little girl," simpers Bellatrix. Her heart pounds. Her wand shakes in her hand. Happy chemicals pump through her half-melted wreck of a brain. "Poor little baby brat." She smiles through her mask. "_Crucio_."

And the scream has a rhythm, Bellatrix's wand is a metronome, and Julie twitches like a dying flounder: _one_-two-three!

Evan dances across the floorboards, twisting, leaping, whirling, and the light from his wand and the pattern of his footsteps are Algernon Garvenbach's whole world. It's like they're waltzing, keeping perfect time, moving in unison, as though they can anticipate each other's movements, as if they've been trained to fight this way, as if they've done this many, many times before. Evan raises his wand, and Garvenbach dodges and blocks. He strikes back, quickly, aiming his Stunner straight at Evan's chest; Evan falls like a corpse, and rolls across the landing, straightening up against the wall to show Garvenbach that _yes,_ he _did_ dodge in time--

"_AVADA KEDAVRA!_"

"NO--STOP--I'LL BE MERCIFUL IF YOU SURRENDER!" Garvenbach chokes through clouds of dust and debris. No, he can't stop it, he can't stop everything coming crashing down, but if it makes him feel better...why not let him try? "I COMMAND YOU!"

Evan's eyes sparkle like sapphires. _Evil_ sapphires. "Why would I want to surrender, scumsucker?" He tosses his head, and I want to rip his sapphire eyes from his inbred little society skull. Evan Rosier is a _bastard_ and I'll take the opportunity to damn him to hell. "I'm _winning_."

---

Algernon Garvenbach is a very good, kind man. He's a role model for all of you delinquents.

Need I emphasize once more that he does _not_, in any way, deserve this?

Oh, bloody hell. Who cares what he deserves?

---

She almost thinks that the room is shaking around her. Or is it really happening? Are these walls really trembling as if they're about to be sick from the scum they've taken in like a disease? The candles on the wall flicker and go out; her hands shake, and she doesn't see where the Floo powder goes as the box overturns in her fingers.

Mrs. Garvenbach wants to scream, but _that would be suicide_.

The tips of her fingers worm into the box, checking every crevice, hoping inanely that they aren't _totally_ screwed, and she finds them; sharp, brittle crystals, almost glowing in the reddish blackness of the entrance hall. A few pinches. _Enough_. She finds the fireplace with her other hand, pulling herself to her knees (she might be sick from the effort), and it's only when the green flames are blazing in the grate that she remembers: _it's almost ten-o'-clock. No one will be at the Ministry--_

"Oh, _damn, _no," she whispers.

And Rodolphus Lestrange grins in the darkness. He _likes_ this one. Killing her will be _beautiful_.

"If I were you," he growls, stepping forward--_look at her, listen to the way she's breathing! Fuck, she's scared, look at her eyes, like she knows she's going to die_--"I'd want Barty Crouch. Think he'd like to know?"

Her heart flutters like the first stirrings of love. Rodolphus would appreciate knowing that. Possibly. "Get away from me!"

"Good girl," rasps Rodolphus, though she's older than he is, and he shoves her forward into the fireplace; she thinks for a moment--and what a moment it is! The best of her life--that she might have some infinitesimal chance to get away, and she lets herself tumble into the flames, but Rodolphus is the god of her world now, and immediately after she chokes out, "10 Carthier Boulevard!", his hands close around her chest, and he holds her like a child while she struggles and twists in the fireplace and Bartemius, in his study, watches, speechless with shock.

---

"Theodosia!"

She looks up and gasps. He's practically _running_ down the staircase, and he _never_ does that, he _knows_ better than that:

"Barty!"

He strides across the room to meet her, grasping her shoulders and pulling her around to stare into his popping eyes. The candlelight flickers across his white face, making absolutely sure that his faint air of psychosis doesn't go unnoticed, and Theodosia squeaks with terror as she stares into her husband's eyes. "Contact the rest of the department," he barks, squeezing her so hard she's convinced that her collarbones are snapping, that in a minute she'll be like poor Mrs. Garvenbach, crippled and tortured and served up for the slaughter. But Bartemius--Barty--_her_ Barty--Bartemius Senior, anyway--would never let that happen to _his_ wife. He loves her too much for that.

Of course, he wouldn't mind if they did it to his _son_.

"Barty--what's going on?! Has there been an attack?" she whispers, and her heart falls out of its proper place and ends up somewhere on the floor. Bartemius sees her fear, and in the great poker game of marriage and death, he raises her outrage and disgust and--perhaps--a little apprehension of his own. But he'd never let her see.

_Someone_ has to be dignified. Though, and neither of them has noticed this, this hypothetical paragon sure as hell isn't Bartemius. Look at him; he's as mad as Bellatrix, and he thinks he's doing _good_.

She kisses him, quickly, rising onto her trembling tippy-toes to reach, and he holds her for a second--fierce, protective, so _different_ from his normal distant self, almost as if he really loves her, really cares about her. "I love you," Theodosia whimpers, knowing that she'll lose her chance if she hesitates; he nods sharply, and in her ear he whispers,

"Not _now_, Theodosia, there's no time!" She shrinks back, and perhaps he feels sorry. "Contact the rest of the department," he says again, brisk and cold, and her tears soak through his robes and send goosebumps across his skin.

After he Disapparates, she stands there, stupidly, and she rather hopes that, against all odds, he'll come back.

More footsteps on the staircase. She turns, not bothering to fix her leaking eyes; it's Barty Junior, staring down at her with his blond hair in his eyes, and she thinks: _oh, Barty, you're growing up to be so handsome. Just like your father._

Theodosia isn't _old_ enough for her vision to have deteriorated so much. Barty is pale, gangly, and awkward; Bartemius, with his sharp features and terrible taste in mustaches, is unattractive even for a politician. Love is blind, and stupid to boot.

"What is it, Mother?" He sounds so _serious_, so _adult_, and her heart bursts open with pride and love.

But she shakes her head, and it hurts to tell him: "There's been another attack."

He goes white; his skin matches his shirt collar. _Wilkes_, he thinks madly, _Mr. Rosier and Mr. Wilkes--they--they knew that something like this was going to--I have to tell her! She has to know--Father has to know--_

_No. Father doesn't have to know anything._

And he doesn't tell her, doesn't worry her; he holds her (disregarding all thoughts of incest), feeling, as he does so, that he is now officially part of something special.

---

If you can call it that. _I _wouldn't. But then, what do I know? Perhaps wholesale slaughter and mass organized chaos are the marks of a civilized society. Blood is the new black.

---

The Aurors are coming. Theodosia will make sure of it...when she stops reveling in her 'handsome' son's attentions. When covert incest loses its appeal, Theodosia will carry out her husband's orders and save Garvenbach's arse. The Aurors are coming. Eventually.

Evan is a foot soldier at best; his talent is propaganda, his gift lies in mob psychology, and he has absolutely no place on the battlefield. Algernon Garvenbach, in case you didn't know, is one of the higher-ranking bastards in the glorious Ministry of Misery and Magic. He's fought Death Eaters a hundred times, keeping collateral damage to an acceptable minimum (perhaps fifty percent?), and sometimes it seems that he can do no wrong in a fight. He fought in the Grindelwald war; he's been half-killed by a better class of bastard than Evan Rosier.

What kind of insane God could possibly let Garvenbach lose? I can't believe it, don't want to see it, but I've known that it was coming all along; he's pinned against a wall, Evan's wand pressed to his throat, and he faces death like a man...that is to say, he is too terrified even to scream, let biology take its course, and/or die of a heart attack and spare himself the indignity of going down to a rank amateur. His wife may well be dead. His daughter is undergoing unspeakable torment, courtesy of unbearable pain. God alone knows what's happened to the boy. And, worst of all, no house-elf (not that Garvenbach ever made any spare Galleons being a hero) can repair the damage done to his cozy domicile.

"Please," he whimpers, and Evan jabs in the wand. He gurgles, chokes, continues, "Mercy..."

"I know what you're about to say," says Evan conversationally. "You have a wife and kids, am I right?"

Garvenbach nods, though the threat doesn't escape his notice. His mind would feel, were he in any state to make the comparison, like a broken Pensieve, playing the same thoughts over and over and over: _I am going to die. They are going to die. I am going to die. My wife and kids are going to die. I am going to die._ Technically, this is true of us all. No need to complain. If you mind mortality so terribly much, the Death Eaters await your loyalty oath.

Is immortality such a bad thing?

"Then," continues Evan, "you're going to want us to spare them. Or kill them, dare I say...less painfully?"

No answer. Garvenbach, you are a self-serving little slime. As are you, dear readers. Dare I say...you'd mind being shoved up against a wall and tormented? And you vilify _Garvenbach_?

"I'm afraid we can't do that." Evan is the real bastard here. "Dead children make headlines."

"Is that all you want?" croaks Garvenbach, and tears are bubbling in his eyes. "You're killing my _family_, my _kids_--for _publicity_?"

"Well," (Evan pauses to let it sink in) "not _entirely_. The Dark Lord's goals and whatnot, I never understood it all, entered into it too. But I'll concede the main point...fear, Mr. Garvenbach, is the greatest weapon of all, and the deaths of children--_innocents_, says the _Prophet_, though a good friend of mine would tell you that the brats of Muggle sympathizers are irredeemable from conception (but that's more a theoretical point)--the death of a child spreads fear better than anything else."

Rodolphus might be surprised to learn that. He always thought killing was, primarily, _fun_.

"You," he growls. "Little shit. I can see you."

Garvenbach's son peers around the edge of the doorway, glaring as much as a terrified ten-year-old can. Machismo is his sole defense against the big bully who killed his mother.

"I'm not afraid," he quavers, drunk on denial. "Put my mum down!"

Rodolphus's eyes glow in the dark. It's a little-known facet of biology; somehow, it relates to a colored membrane that humans shouldn't have. Rodolphus, your inhumanity is showing.

"Come on out," he says.

The boy _should_ run and hide. But he doesn't.

"I'm not afraid of you!"

"Yeah, right." Rodolphus flicks his wand lazily, and a candle flares in the dark. "You should be," he rasps. "Your mum was."

Mrs. Garvenbach is draped in Rodolphus's arms like Bluebeard's bride. Her eyes are still open. So is her chest.

"What's _wrong_ with her?" The boy stares, transfixed, and his voice rises into a shriek. "What did you do to her?"  
You don't want to hear the next part. It isn't pleasant at all, especially if you realize--though of _course_ I wouldn't dream of telling you--that the poor woman is still alive.

The tip of Rodolphus's tongue caresses her face like a dog's, and some of the blood is gone when he closes his mouth.

Poor boy. If he lives to puberty, his sexual awakening would forever be ruined by that image. "M-mum?" he whimpers, and tries to look away.

"She struggled," says Rodolphus with relish. "But not hard enough."

Behind them, Dolohov and Wilkes enter the house. That makes four Death Eaters to four victims. Where have I heard this equation before?

Upstairs, Julie's shrieks have long since fallen silent. It would be utterly tasteless to say what Bellatrix has done to her. I will say only that--and you sadists and voyeurs should _not_ enjoy this as much as I know you do--she felt every last twinge...and it took her a few minutes to lose consciousness from bleeding out.

And Mr. Garvenbach is still alive. Pity.

Evan Rosier is in love with the sound of his own voice. He lectures, he mocks gently, he comforts one second and threatens the next, but the two words he can't find it in himself to say are the ones that Garvenbach expects the most: '_Avada Kedavra_.'

The Aurors are coming, and that's crucial to the Plan, but--blame Theodosia--they _aren't here yet_. And so Garvenbach gets a reprieve.

(Allow me to take a paragraph to note the irony, flesh out the relationship between Garvenbach and the beleaguered Mr. Crouch, and provide Garvenbach with some backstory, just to make his inevitable death sadder. (I'm a bastard.) Algernon Garvenbach is one of the men responsible for making the Auror Office into what it is today. He trained an intelligent, if heartless and uptight, young man in the ways of statecraft--Garvenbach is the only father figure Bartemius ever had--and installed him as the boss. Hopelessly optimistic, he tried his best to keep Bartemius's heart alive in its iron prison: searching desperately for some vestigial interests outside of politics, encouraging him to pursue his natural talents in linguistics, and, most relevantly, quietly fostering his surrogate son's awkward and ill-fated love affair with Theodosia Greengrass. Garvenbach played matchmaker, and Bartemius, against his will, fell in love with a girl seven years his junior, several ranks below him on the government ladder, and possessed of only half his intellect. Theodosia could easily have grown into a capable witch, but alas, it was not to be; retiring to become Mrs. Crouch and have little Barty may have been the stupidest move of her life, and Garvenbach can be excoriated for allowing it. It is his _fault_ that Theodosia never achieved her full potential. It is his _fault_ that she is trapped in a marriage that was dead before it began. And it is his _fault_ that the Aurors are not here to bail him out. Isn't recent history amazing?)

"Have they summoned the Aurors yet?" asks Evan, who has run out of conversational topics.

"I don't...no...please..."

Evan jerks his wand, and Garvenbach's face fizzes and burns.

"Answer the question, dolt," he says, sounding less cheerful.

"I really don't know." Garvenbach's knees are turning to butter, and he sags against the wall; Evan shoves him back up like a little girl with an elderly rag doll. Something inside him snags: _after all, he can't kill me twice, can he_? "I should damn well hope so, though, after what you've done here tonight!"

"You _highly_ overestimate your Ministry," says a voice, and Edmund Wilkes, in full Death Eater regalia, appears--as if by magic--on the stairs. His wand is drawn as a matter of pride, but it's nothing more; Garvenbach is a _politician_, and the Aurors are late.

Garvenbach's breathing is ragged, wet, raspy; I could compare it to the rustle of wet, decaying leaves at the end of fall, or the gurgling of clogged, worn-out plumbing, but what would be the point? It's not poetry. It's _breathing_. It's a sad reminder of just how far he's fallen over the course of half an hour. Has it ever been this bad? Have two incompetent soldiers ever brought him, defeated, to the brink of despair? _Why is it different tonight_?

Because it's _his_ family, and he couldn't protect them. He's a hero to other people. His _family_ has nothing to say about it. They _trusted _him, a whole _nation_ trusted him, and now...gone. All gone!

_I'm not a hero_, he says to himself. _I'm a failure. They're dead, and I'm alive (so far!). I'm just a man after all._

And yet he holds out as the Death Eaters mock him. He barely shudders when Edmund and Evan swell his eyes like bloodshot bullfrogs, warping the face the nation put so much faith in into a nauseous mess, and though his nerves scream, his brain holds fast: _I won't give them the satisfaction!_

---

Angst. No one wants to hear it. _I_, we think, _would _never _think these things in a life-or-death situation. After all, _I _am an intelligent, competent, self-actualized human being who knows where he/she is going in his/her life and knows how to get there. And also, I take antidepressants._

Until a merciful God descends from the heavens and sends all of the Death Eaters to pay for their sins, Algernon Garvenbach's best bets to forget this hellish night are Memory Charms, Cheering Charms, and crushing depression.  
Also, would you kindly let me borrow some of your antidepressants? I rather think we'll need them.

---

Dolohov pokes his hooded head upstairs.

"Are the Aurors here yet?" Edmund asks dully, staring into the light of his wand. "If _something_ doesn't happen soon, I might just kill Mr. Garvenbach. For the novelty of it all." Evan throws up a hand as a warning: _did you _read _the Plan, Edmund_? "No, I wouldn't really do it--stop fluttering like that! I wouldn't _really_ do it!" He scowls under his mask, and Evan and Dolohov (not to mention poor 'Mr. Garvenbach') miss it. "But if the Aurors don't show up soon, the whole thing's kaput anyway--"

"Save it," says Dolohov. "They aren't here."

"Another ten minutes?" says Evan ruefully. "Didn't the woman contact them?"

"Well," Dolohov says, "Lestrange says so--"

"Oh, that's _it_!" Edmund snaps. "What are you going to give away next, dammit? _My_ name? His? _Yours_? Oh, right, I forgot," he continues, spinning out his words like a bad melodramatic actor, "they can all tell you by your _accent_, can't they?"

Dolohov's head jerks up, and after a moment of self-consciousness (_is my accent _that _noticeable?_), he spits, in an accent that has, nevertheless, been softened by thirty years in Britain, "If I were you, you bastard, I'd shut my filthy mouth!"

"If I were _you_," retorts Edmund, "I'd shut it from humiliation!"

Dolohov's wand comes out, rearing like a snake, or a tiger, or a...

Wizards are _so_, _so_ unbearably Freudian.

Dolohov may indeed be compensating for something. It's not my place to judge; if you're sick enough to understand my perverted little implications, you can damn well work it out for yourself. (For the record...his wand is not impressive.) But his masculine pride is bound up with his identity--in Wizarding Britain, birth places _you_!--as a foreigner. A pureblooded foreigner, but who gives a wizard fuck? (Dolohov had the misfortune to immigrate almost immediately after the Grindelwald debacle. 'Common sense' and commonly accepted morality dictated that he was, fairly or no, ostracized; Voldemort invites him along to kill, but Voldemort is racist in an entirely different way.)

Evan's wand flies up, and Dolohov's soars out of his hand and hits poor Garvenbach in the recently-deflated eye. He would like to wince, but he can't; they Body-Bound him when he struggled, and he's propped against the wall. Think of a plank: a helpless plank feeling every minute as it's fed to the flames. _Too melodramatic,_ you cry, loving every minute. _Does anyone really feel like that?_ Well, let me see...Garvenbach's wife is dead, and his captor has just barely escaped the same fate. _Stockholm syndrome!_ you cry. I appreciate the effort, but all the same, I regretfully inform you that the damn thing doesn't work that way. Garvenbach is merciful, and he hates the sight of death, but there are limits.

_Where the hell are the Aurors?_ he thinks, nevertheless.

Dolohov glares behind the mask.

Evan glares back. "Infighting is strictly forbidden, _gentlemen_." (His enunciation is simultaneously sarcastic and not; this is a rare genetic ability thought to be possessed only by upper-class twits and utter bastards.) "We can't afford to lose a single man before the Aurors arrive, as _I thought I had explained to you earlier._ Apparently I didn't, in which case I really will have to investigate my memory--"

"Garvenbach is _one man_!" explodes Edmund. "We have reinforcements coming, reserves, reserves for the reserves--hell, we outnumber them by a hundred! _Why_, exactly, are we pussyfooting around, _my friend_, when we could _crush_ them?"

Evan's response is most enlightening, and it draws a horrified moan from Garvenbach, not to mention smirks of approval and enlightenment from Edmund and Dolohov alike, but you don't get to hear it. You may know how Garvenbach's sad story ends--and it isn't _that_ sad, nor that obvious--but suspense has to be maintained somehow. You wouldn't keep reading for titillating glimpses of carnage and sex and untold riches, would you?

I suppose I didn't need to ask.

---

And now, children, a lesson in analogies:

Innocent naivete is to Bellatrix what love potions are to the unwashed masses. I'll answer it for you: an aphrodisiac.

Voldemort is to Bellatrix what the law is to Bartemius. A fetish, an idol, a justification. ('Fetish' in the _other_ sense, dearies.)

Blood, guts, soprano screams, and sickening tragedy are to Rodolphus what pornography is to saner men. Sex, sex, sex, adrenaline, and testosterone.

Julie is to Bellatrix what the nameless boy is to Rodolphus. Something to have, something to break, something to fuck to death and watch bleed, something to sacrifice to the Dark Lord, and, all in all, a worthless little bitch.

"I'll kill you," sniffles the boy, standing straight-backed against the wall, brandishing his toy broomstick. "You stupid bastard--"

"The fuck you will," says Rodolphus. "Your mummy teach you those words?" He leers in the flickering candle-light, and I don't blame you for being a little bit aroused by the blood on his mask and in his eyes. His fingernails dig into Mrs. Garvenbach's chest, and her back arches--it's only natural! Only a reflex! His grip is iron, it's a vise from hell, and her skin parts ways with her blood; it could almost be some grotesque pantomime of the loss of virginity. But that would be _sick_, and _wrong_, and unthinkable. Forget I ever said anything of the sort.

Besides, Rodolphus's wife prefers murder to sex, and he's childless, though only Rabastan ever dared to hope that 'brother' still had his innocence; Mrs. Garvenbach carried our little witness in her belly for nine months, and Algernon put him up there in the first place in a beautiful act of marital love. (They also have half a daughter.)

Their act of marital love is about to go to waste.

Perhaps I'm a pervert, but Rodolphus is worse. _She's warm_, he thinks, and mentally compares the gashes--the tight, red, wet gashes--in her chest to...(Censored. For _your_ protection. I'm not sure why I bother, though.) _Her heartbeat..._He trails off. _I can feel her breathe. Her lungs work. Still. The fuck? _The F-word is _so_ versatile. Rodolphus sounds _so_ much like a primary-schooler. _She's conscious._ Hot shivers run down his spine. Some sadistic force compels him to check, to _make sure_; he withdraws his hand with a certain degree of reluctance, and he leaves bloody fingerprints on his wand.

Her eyes fly open, and the spell keeps them that way.

The boy tells himself, very sternly, _Men don't get sick at the sight of blood. That's for pansies._ (Rabastan would be _thrilled_ to take the boy as his apprentice in the art of Pansies Acting Brave.) Nevertheless, sex-role stereotyping and homophobic insults aside, I pity the boy, and you should, too. If you don't pity him, you're a sociopath like Rodolphus, and, if the universe shows you any justice at all, you will be hit by a bus.

Mrs. Garvenbach is still alive, and she sees everything. Like her husband, she is helpless, unable to scream a warning; unlike her husband, she'll be dead in a few minutes anyway. Who cares about Mrs. Garvenbach?

Rodolphus squeezes her, and a little squeak comes out. She's like a rubber ducky, but bloodier and rather less disturbing. Bellatrix would _love_ the comparison; Rodolphus, master of the utterly inane, makes a mental note of it. "Your mum's alive," he breathes, and little Garvenbach trembles. "She's bleeding her guts out, right? Her eyes are moving, aren't they? So she's alive."

"So?" squeaks young Garvenbach, raising his broomstick, though whether it's to put his mum out of her misery or send her tormentor to Hell, he isn't sure--

"Stay _back_, Scrimgeour!" barks a voice that Rodolphus has heard only once or twice in his life. He didn't hear the door open, but he turns to look at the nice government men: Crouch on the threshold, glowering at Scrimgeour, whose wand is drawn and ready.

"_Protego_," he growls. And he laughs, a dark, vicious sound, and turns his wand back to Mrs. Garvenbach: "_Avada Kedavra._ Evening, Mr. Crouch."

Scrimgeour moves to stop him, but he's just a second too late.

Bellatrix hears it all, and her evening takes a definite turn for the better. _Cousin Barty?_ she thinks, laughing inwardly. _You're here with your precious Aurors, aren't you? So the Ministry's finally caught on?_

_You're like lambs to the slaughter. The Death Eaters will have you all. And there's nothing you can do about it, is there?_

She turns away from Julie; there isn't enough left of Julie to be worth worrying about. I won't give you a description, for fear of what you might do with it. Kindly refrain from smirking.

_You're so _heroic, _showing your ugly faces only when it's already too late. You're so _clever_, waltzing straight into an ambush. We don't stand a chance._

_Pathetic!_

She takes a moment to listen--_that's Rodolphus's voice, isn't it?_ Her wand hand twitches. It's _far_ more interesting than Julie was; her senses fill with a rush of imagined blood, and she finds herself, once again, longing to kill.

"Well," says Evan, nodding amiably, "they're finally here."

Garvenbach's heart jumps in his motionless chest. He wants to run, and jump, and scream: _they're here! Everything's going to be all right!_

And Bellatrix sweeps past him, pausing only to meet Evan and Edmund's mutual gaze, and nod sharply; they rise to follow her, and Dolohov, the new guard by the process of elimination, sits down by Garvenbach's side and puts the tip of a wand to his throat.

So much for that.

"In accordance with the laws of Wizarding Britain," Crouch snarls, wand next to Scrimgeour's, digging into Rodolphus's chest, "you have the right to surrender now and remain unharmed." He takes a breath, and rather hopes that Rodolphus will _not_ surrender: _murderers _have _no rights!_ "If you do not surrender, the Ministry will hereby consider you an active threat, and I will be authorized to use all necessary force in your capture..."

Rodolphus stares, barely comprehending. The candlelight flickers madly, sending little slices of light over cold-voiced, mad-eyed Crouch (_bastard doesn't know what the hell he's doing_) and grim-faced Scrimgeour (_stupid tit thinks he can take me_), over the sobbing little boy in the corner (_I could kill him in a second_), and over the two Aurors behind Bartemius: Alastor Moody and (Rodolphus smirks, recognizing her) Avery's psychotic girlfriend. Four against one.

_Whole fucking night with Bella wouldn't come close to this._

"Go ahead," he growls, and, in one movement, he drops Mrs. Garvenbach (she slides to the floor between them, hampering any attempts to run), and presses the tip of his own wand to Bartemius Crouch's temple. _God_, he loves this part. "Your move, fuckers."

They take it. As one, Moody and Scrimgeour bellow "_Stupefy!"_; Rodolphus dodges. Shoves Crouch into the place where the spells will meet. Crouch staggers, throws his wand hand up, and the twin jets cross and ricochet off the tip of his wand. They hit something. It doesn't matter what. Rodolphus grins wildly in the reflected red light.

"_Avada Ked--_"

"_VISCUS TRUNCO!_" shrieks Mulciber. He forgot about Mulciber. Rodolphus's concentration breaks like glass. He drops his wand--_hell, I can pick it up later, right_?

He doesn't, initially, register the pain as belonging to _him_. His hand. His blood gushing merrily away. That's _illegal_. The Ministry shouldn't be _allowed--_it feels sharp, hot, as if a whip hit him in that exact spot; _I'm _bleeding? _Already?_ _Shit._ Wandless, bleeding, and psychotic, he charges Mulciber, snarling, "fuck you!", and the solid feeling of her body collapsing under his is the first reminder that fighting for your life is supposed to be fun.

The other three men in the room disagree.

"_STUPE_--"

"NO!" And Edmund joins the fight, jumping over the handrail of the staircase; Evan, leaning over the banister after him, slows his fall, and he lands more or less neatly. Four against three.

---

Bellatrix flings the front window open. She shrieks with laughter--_Merlin, Rodolphus isn't entirely useless, is he?_--and points her wand at the sky.

Green sparks.

The signal.

All part of the plan.

---

From Evan's viewpoint, it looks like a dance. Lights flash. People fall, dodge, twist, and lash out. They circle each other, keeping eye contact, stepping forward and retreating. And they never stop moving. His eyes swim trying to make sense of it all; he rains spells on the three Aurors, and he attempts to assassinate Crouch once or twice, but he's never _entirely_ certain that his next jet of light won't hit Rodolphus, or Edmund, or nothing at all. Prayer might be helpful here...but who wants to trust the lives of his best mates to _prayer_?

He keeps his wand hand steady, taking deep breaths, and hopes.

And it seems to work.

He watches Rodolphus slump, Stunned, over Mulciber's struggling body, and, soon enough, he watches Edmund bring him back. Evan smiles under his mask: _who'd have thought that Edmund, of all people, would save his mate in a fight_? Edmund flickers across his field of vision, throwing jinxes like darts; the metaphor, I'm afraid, only holds up if you assume that Edmund is a particularly bad player. He flicks a hex somewhere in Scrimgeour's direction. Turns. Tosses a jet of red light at Crouch, who retaliates in kind, snarling, "SURRENDER! I COMMAND YOU!" But they don't. It's a bar brawl now. Moody's wand slashes _up-down-right-left_, _one_-two-three; it moves independently of the man himself. Rodolphus snarls, rearing up near the staircase, wand once again in hand. Lights and colors. Evan's head hurts. They seem to have forgotten that he's there; I'd like to remind them that there's another man to kill. (_Some_ of us haven't forgotten his bastardry to Garvenbach.)

Bellatrix brushes against him on her way down. He turns to look at her, and comments, "Interesting show so far."

She looks back up at him, and he could _swear_ that there's a smirk under her mask. "Is it a game to you, Rosier?"

"I don't see why it shouldn't be," he says. "It's a game to you. And _please_ don't use my name."

She scoffs, tosses her hooded head, and storms down the stairs. (He's quite right, you know, Bella.)

It's initially hard for Evan to tell whether or not the other six combatants have noticed Bellatrix's presence. She drops into the melee, wand flying, and it's as if she's been there all along. Dodge! Curse! Yelp! Retreat! Charge! Attack! Jinx! Repeat! Battle has a rhythm all its own, and Bellatrix slides in. She dodges under Moody's arm, deflects a curse of unidentified provenance, and then Evan loses track of her; he blinks, and she's just another one of the three hooded figures weaving in and out of his vision. The Aurors and Crouch are more distinctive, by virtue of their uncovered heads, but that means little enough. Evan's brain can't make sense of what his eyes see: the light pounding his retinas comes from five different places at once, flashing in and out, in and out, casting sillhouettes of the struggle against the walls and floor. He closes his eyes, and tries to breathe, but it doesn't work too terribly well. When he opens his eyes, the whole thing is still there.

He hears a shriek, and, unsurprisingly, it's followed by a neat spray of blood. Whose blood? God knows. It paints a clean line across one wall, looking almost brown in the erratic light. Lovely, elegant, aesthetically pure and refined. Evan is forced to close his eyes again just to deal with the sight.

He flicks a Stunner through the banisters, for the look of the thing, and is only mildly surprised when Scrimgeour avoids it altogether. It's too bad, however, that he isn't prepared for what happens next. Scrimgeour dodges the spell, and runs...

...away from the fight...

...stepping over the crying boy...

...he reaches the foot of the stairs. Evan gawks down at him, and stands up as quickly as he can. Scrimgeour charges, wand drawn, and Evan kicks; it connects with our hero's shoulder, sending him reeling, and Evan takes the moment to scream, "INTRUDER!" at the top of his lungs. He knows Dolohov hears. Half the neighbors can hear him; the other half are too drunk to care. There's no problem in that area. The problem is more complicated: will Dolohov follow The Plan?

"_Scrimgeour!_" barks Crouch, and the question, for the moment, is not about to be answered. Crouch deflects a barrage of flames, courtesy of Rodolphus, and his face is pale and twisted as he screams, "Stay where you are!"

"They don't want us up here!" Scrimgeour bellows. "They're trying to protect--_NO!_" And that is all, as Evan and his wand descend upon Scrimgeour in a whirl of black that barely shows up against the candlelight. One against one. They briefly abandon their Wizarding ideals as they wrestle on the stairs. Wands clutched for security more than anything else. Elbows and fingers everywhere God didn't intend them to be. Evan's feet dance across the steps as he leans into Scrimgeour, breathing hard, wondering idly, _will he break my fall_? He shoves. Thrusts. Kicks and twists. They hold each other, moving in and out. In and out. Scrimgeour's robes scrape across Evan's face, and he slides down, down, over the stairs, and his head slips along Scrimgeour's chest as he goes down for the count.

I'd compare it to sex, but that would be all too easy.

Evan lies sprawled on the stairs, eyes half-open, tangled in the banisters. His ribs are _throbbing_. Scrimgeour Stuns him as he dashes up the stairs; so much for the Death Eaters. So much for The Plan. Who's left to remind Dolohov that _Garvenbach must stay alive_?

Yes, you read that correctly.

"_SCRIMGEOUR!_" Crouch stares up at the landing, eyes bulging, and he has a very strong--though quickly suppressed, of course--urge to swear.

Garvenbach hears. He sees, out of the corner of his eye, Dolohov rise up to duel Scrimgeour, though most of the actual duel is lost to him. One against one. He hears yelps and snarls, incantations and muffled profanities, and the light from their spells jitters and twitches across the walls. Occasionally, something close to him explodes, and his brain jumps even as his muscles remain useless. And he wants to warn Scrimgeour: _run! Run away! Don't you see what'll happen to you if you stay? I'm not worth that much_! It occurs to him that he, as a senior Ministry official, _is_ worth that much, and that he was longing just a minute ago for the Aurors to come along and save his sorry arse, and it makes him feel worse. Garvenbach tries to move his lips, and he can't; propped against the wall, he can feel the hallway vibrate as Dolohov and Scrimgeour jump around. His mind, finding itself devoid of any muscle input, decides to transpose itself into Scrimgeour's body, and he's sure that he can feel every little twinge.

Edmund, downstairs, wants to swear. _Bellatrix and Rodolphus are ignoring Evan's moronic 'Plan'._ He watches them, not a care in the world, flinging Sylvia Mulciber through the door of the kitchen, and he is struck by a silly little urge to Stun them both and bring down Crouch, Moody, and Mulciber on his own. _I could never do that_, he thinks bitterly, and resolves to put up with them.

He glances out of the window: no Aurors. _God_, he thinks. _Lazy bastards can't even be bothered to turn up. Not even when their high-and-mighty Mr. Garvenbach is in danger. If I were him, I wouldn't put so much trust in these people...frankly, it's a bit of a disgrace. Embarrassing. What kind of control do they have over these morons, anyway? Do they only turn up if they feel like it? Idiotic way to run a government. I wouldn't do that if _I _were Garvenbach or Crouch or whoever. How many battles have they lost that they could have won?_

_God, _I _could run the Ministry better than Millicent Bagnold. Evan could strategize better than Barty Crouch. (Does he even _care_ how many Aurors die?) And Bellatrix..._

Edmund turns back to Bellatrix and company, only to find that soliloquizing isn't such a good move in a battle. Mulciber charges back in. There's steel around her head, like a halo: kitchen knives, flying at top speed. She drops her wand hand sharply, and Edmund's world goes black. Three against two.

---

They creep up to the house like cockroaches, but without all of the moral facilities that the latter are known for.

One of them opens the back door, and they flood in.

---

Bellatrix and Rodolphus are standing back to back in the center of the room. They're like the sun: they have a gravity all their own. The Aurors and Crouch circle them, trying to pull away, but they keep falling toward the Lestranges and their unbreakable defenses. (How's that for a physics lesson, albeit a stupid and utterly wrong one? It does not work that way.)

Rodolphus can feel Bellatrix's shoulders pressed against his own; her muscles shift and twitch as she moves. She's hot and trembling with excitement, and he pushes into her, enjoying her resistance. His breath speeds up, raspy from excitement and years of cigarettes. And he fucks them, thrusting spell after spell out into space. Hot, tingling, liquid curses, sending tiny little shocks down his spine as he _fucks them all_. Who needs sex?  
The comparison is overused, I know. I have no right to compare killing to sex. It's tasteless. It's cliched. It's utterly stupid and pointless.

And yet it feels _so_ good.

"Bella," he rasps, and the sound of his deep voice is music. He thrusts his hand into hers, and he's in such a good mood that her resistance doesn't bother him a tiny little bit.

"_What_ are you doing?" she spits, turning her head to whisper in his ear. Alto. Not very musical, on the whole.

"Trust me, damn you!" He holds her hand like a lovestruck schoolboy. Tightly, so she can't get away. And the candles go out; it's so picturesque, and so reminiscent of the best operas, that it takes poor broken Rodolphus a minute to remember that he put them out himself. Strategy is beyond him, but he isn't bad at wanton destruction.

Someone makes a disconcerted noise. Crouch, possibly, or Mulciber. Who can tell?

The relative genius of Rodolphus's 'plan' hits Bellatrix. He knows where she is. She knows where he is. Everything else is collateral damage and utterly beneath worrying about.

And Rodolphus and Bellatrix dance.

---

"Let's get them," whispers a nameless foot soldier.

"Not yet," says Lucius in an undertone. "Wait."

The Death Eaters pile into the laundry room one by one.

---

"Run!" yelps Scrimgeour, and Garvenbach finds that, for the first time in what seems like forever, he can. He has the opportunity--would Dolohov miss him?--and the motive.

And he doesn't do it.

He stands there, pressed against the wall; his legs jerk and quiver, his fear reaches a screaming apex, and his brain feels like slush in his skull. Algernon Garvenbach does not run. He knows he should, knows that he's too emotionally distraught (note, and note well, how insignificant it looks on the page) to be of any use save as an easier target for the Death Eaters. And he can't do it.  
Scrimgeour and Dolohov float in front of him in slow motion. He sees Dolohov's hand come up, and the spell burst out; he sees Scrimgeour twist and spit in midair like a pissed-off cat. Garvenbach opens his mouth, and he's flying, the world circles around him as he makes his decision, it slides past him as his fist slams into Dolohov, and as he falls back to earth and automatically looks for his wand, one thought and one thought alone comes to him:

_My family is _dead_!_

He has the excuse to angst and coil up. Indeed, that's what he'll feel at the edges of his mind for the rest of his sorry little life: the urge to surrender. The urge to _stop caring_. What's left for him in this silly old world of his? The world he bestrode like a giant and built into a great country? What is there in it that he wouldn't mind giving up?

_My family is _dead_!_

Scrimgeour's saying something, but Garvenbach isn't sure what. He has the sense that if he stops--stops fighting, stops struggling, stops resisting and denying and pleading with the truth to _please,_ please not be true--he'll slide away from gravity and drop off the planet entirely. It's simple. Clean. Clear. The man under him is struggling and going for his wand. The man under him is a Death Eater.

_My family is _dead_!_

He wants to hurt the men who killed his family as badly as he possibly can. He gouges at Dolohov's eyes through the mask. Reaches in. Rips. Tears. Dolohov yells, and Garvenbach feels, for a moment, triumphant. Scrimgeour can say what he likes. The Death Eater minger can scream all he likes. Garvenbach has them both under control. It's easy. It's as if nothing's happened at all.

But if he lets go and pulls back, the abyss is waiting to catch him...

Garvenbach can't win, in the end. He can keep going. He might even kill Dolohov. He might kill thousands or millions of men like Dolohov. But when he's alone, and he takes a step back, it'll be exactly as if none of the deaths mattered at all. Which, in the end, they didn't.  
That's one theory. There are others. One could easily argue that Garvenbach's revenge-driven rage is _not_ futile, because he killed the bastards. Or because he avenged his children. Or because he made the world safe for good, loving parents. Or because he felt it at all. Or even because he stepped back. Personally, I don't give a fuck. I'm stuck here with Garvenbach. Garvenbach's family is _dead_! Isn't it sad? Isn't it horribly poignant and sentimental? Oh, Julie, we hardly knew you!

It all becomes rather pointless when Bellatrix and Edmund come striding up the stairs. Edmund's first spell hits Scrimgeour, and there will be no witnesses but Garvenbach himself. I'm sure that you know by now how absolutely useless Garvenbach is. (How did he become head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement? Why, I have absolutely no idea! It's a cop-out!) Bellatrix's first spell hits Garvenbach, and it flips him end over end and slams him into the floor. His joints gush distilled agony.

Algernon Garvenbach's paternal fury is a balloon. Bear with me. Take it seriously. It's a balloon, inflated to bursting point, swelling as he hits Dolohov. And Bellatrix's spell is a tack. The air goes out of his fury and it deflates into a sad, rubbery little mass. Do I need to dumb the metaphor down any further? All right. Garvenbach was angry. Now he is not angry. This is like a balloon. Bellatrix is a nasty, evil person, and she helped Garvenbach get over himself and stem his homicidal urges. Let's give a medal and a really big hand to Bellatrix Artemis Black Lestrange.

Dolohov creaks as he looks up. "The reinforcements," he croaks. "Haven't they gotten here yet?"

Garvenbach doesn't see Edmund sneer, but he can picture it in his head. (_No one_ sees Edmund sneer. Edmund is wearing a mask. Get it through your heads.) "They've arrived, and damn well soon enough."

"Poor Barty," simpers Bellatrix. "He's _hopelessly_ outnumbered." Her voice shifts into its normal register, taking on a rasping aspect that unfortunately gives her a _femme-fatale _quality. "He will hold out for a minute. Perhaps two, if the girl is any good. No longer. If the Auror reinforcements don't come..." She trails off.

Edmund applies his palm violently to his forehead. "So much for the damn Plan. What do you want me to do? What do you _expect_ me to do?"

"Assist Rodolphus," she says. "Dolohov, join the others. Lucius will command you." Bellatrix pauses, and tastes the air before she continues, "Crouch is mine."

"Yours," echoes Edmund.

"Right," says Dolohov derisively, and she, very deliberately, stomps on his wand hand. Edmund waits for her to go downstairs before he follows suit.

"You're a foot soldier," he mutters, "_Russian._ Don't forget it."

When Dolohov, muttering unprintable things under his breath, crawls to his feet and follows, Garvenbach exhales at long last. _I could have killed them_, he thinks, and immediately knows that he couldn't have, and why. Sweet emotion fills his gullet, and he can barely lift his hand to search for his wand.

---

He can't _imagine_ that any of them could be so _reckless. _It's disorganized. Insane. Irrational.

Nevertheless, Bellatrix charged past Bartemius (we're on first-name terms again, readers) before he knew what was happening, and now the fallout is his problem.

She might be a Death Eater, but, even by those lenient standards, she's _insane_.

The (Bartemius doesn't swear, even in his mind, but he comes oh, so fucking close) is out on the _lawn_, wand upraised. And--and this is what convinces Bartemius that she's waiting for him and him alone--she does nothing. Nothing. Bartemius, in his egomania, sees the solution: _she's mocking the Ministry. Mocking me. This_, he snarls inwardly, _will not be tolerated!_

There are many, many reasons, for Bartemius doing what Bartemius does. He's a fascist and a totalitarian. He expects inhuman perfection from himself and others. As Bellatrix's first cousin once removed, he has the worst of the Black genes on his mother's side. When he was a young boy, his soon-to-be-deceased father, Caspar Crouch, took it upon himself to beat his hard, brittle son into a man worthy of respect. Dark wizards killed his sisters. His mother never gave a damn about him. No one understands him. Bartemius has, for fifty-nine years, led an isolated and warped life. And yet, he pursues Bellatrix for one reason alone: he's an arrogant egomaniac who can't take criticism.

He charges.

Bellatrix, on the verge of revealing herself to the world, smiles widely under the mask. _Decent people_! she thinks. _Ministry people!_ She dodges Bartemius's streak of red light. Stares at him through the slits in her mask. _Does he recognize his little cousin?_ she wonders. _Will he know who I am in his last minutes? Barty, always the accuser--do you know who's going to kill you?_

And the game begins.

"Stop!" he barks. "In the name of the Ministry of Magic! I command you!" His voice rises to a shriek. "_I COMMAND YOU!_"

She flings herself at him, running across the damp grass, and she finds her voice as she gets close: "You do not command me!" She readies her wand and jabs. "_EVERTO ORBIS!_"

Bartemius's skin goes white and he snatches at her. Clutches thin air. He looks for her, wildly, pointlessly, knowing she's gone, and he's just in time to see the flames. Six feet high. Surrounding him like a prison. Dancing and weaving as he moves to escape them, and there is no way out, no way--the heat caresses his skin--_there is no way out!_--the crackle becomes a roar--_I will not die this way!_.

Bellatrix watches. She fancies that she can hear his frantic breathing: quick, choppy, choking on smoke and heat. Of course, she's deluded. The only sound in the night is the roar. It sucks everything in and spits it out as an echo. _It's beautiful_. She stares, and she can almost hear him scream--pride gone, dignity gone, _everything_ burning.

Burn the wizard!

The _crack_ as he takes the obvious route out is lost in the noise of the fire. The circle of fire that is _just_ large enough for Bartemius to Disapparate from. Sometimes Bellatrix doesn't think things through.

He whips into existence behind her. She's mesmerized by the fire, poor insane thing that she is, and she doesn't notice. Even at this distance--six meters? More? (It really isn't _very_ much distance)--he can feel the heat on his face. _She attempted_, he thinks, in his usual stilted way, _to kill me_.

_There can be no mercy for murderers._

_Mr. Garvenbach, I am sure, will...understand._

"_Diffindo_," he mutters. It occurs to him in the second before the spell hits, that, were it not appallingly Dark, _viscus trunco!_ might have been a better solution to the problem. Designed for it, one might say. To mutilate, but not to kill...never to kill...after all, and this is the sole thing that matters to Bartemius, it's _illegal_. (_Sectumsempra_ would serve every last one of his needs. No one's bothered to make _this_ one illegal, at least partially because the Ministry doesn't know it exists. If only Severus had shared his grand ideas with the Ministry of Magic, Bartemius would be a terrifying force of destruction...though it could so easily be argued that he already is.)

The Severing Charm hits. And the back of her robes splits; a neat line opens itself up across her shoulder blade, and her yell as she whirls is inhuman. Before she turns, Bartemius sees it. Blood. He's drawn blood. It reflects brown in the light of the fire.

Bellatrix clutches at her shoulder. She isn't entirely sure it's happened. _What's _happened. She's bleeding. Bleeding! He cut her! Crouch saw her defenseless and he cut her and she couldn't do anything! He hurt her! And she's Bellatrix, so her rage bursts out as a vicious remark: "What's _wrong_, Barty, too scared to finish me?"

He stiffens at the use of his first name. Holds his wand in his hand. _I have the moral high ground._ "Currently," he spits, "we have _laws_, woman." He pauses, and from the look in his eyes, she thinks that there might be something more. There is: "_STUPEFY!_"

"_Protego!_" she retorts, and his spell bounces up, up and away.

"But," he continues, and she watches his pale face contort under the black soot, "_don't_ assume that I wouldn't like to."

"Liar!" His next spell flickers toward her, and she Disapparates a second time. Her voice echoes, weirdly magnified, milking it for all the melodrama she can get. "LIAR! HYPOCRITE!" Her fingers caress his shoulders, and when he fires a spell behind him without turning to look, there's nothing there. "Filthy liar! All for your Ministry, isn't it? You really _believe_? Hypocrite! Hypocrite! Hypocrite!"

Bartemius is pissed off. (Though he'd never say it in those words.) He stares around madly, eyes flickering; the next time she Disapparates, he's ready. "_Stupefy!_" She reappears at wandpoint. Dodges, stumbles, falls. Her wand flies out of her hand. Bartemius has no idea where it falls, but then, Bellatrix doesn't either.

"Yes," he says, very quietly, as he strides over to her shuddering body. "I am a loyal servant of the Ministry of Magic."

Her shoulders twitch as she turns her head to look at him. She's faceless, nameless; her mask is still on. "A loyal servant, are you?" she rasps. "Liar. A servant who gives orders...a _loyal servant_ of nothing but your own empty words...what do you serve, Crouch?"

He glares down at her. Presses his wand into her throat. "Quiet," he snaps. "Don't speak to me."

Somewhere, in the house, perhaps, or down the street (have the Muggles noticed? Lights, screams, two meters of fire), people are yelling.

Bellatrix raises her head, choking down a pitiful moan as her shoulder scrapes over the grass. It _burns_. He hurt her. "You won't kill me, will you?" She gazes, eyes narrowed, and Bartemius barely notices as she searches for her wand with one hand. "_Don't speak to me_!" She mimics his curt voice, with a little touch of venom of her own. "_Don't speak to me!_ You can't face me, Crouch. You know that you can't. Your Ministry is useless, isn't it? Held back by your stupid laws?"

He stares. She stares back. You know what they're thinking: mutual longing to kill.

Get on with it!

"The Ministry of Magic," she whispers, "will fall, and the hypocrites will burn." Bellatrix's hand closes on her wand. "All of you."

It's justifiable, I suppose, that Bartemius snaps. For a politician, he has very little control of his base emotions. He takes temporary leave of his senses, long enough to jab his wand into her skin, and his rage burns white in his skull.

Bellatrix brings up her foot. God, she fights dirty. Bartemius sees it just in time and swivels his hips just enough; the kick strikes unfeeling bone, and though he winces, he holds fast. Perhaps--though personally, I think it's moronic--it's possible to interpret this as a sign. 'No matter how hard it tries, evil will never kick government in the bollocks.' As a slogan, it could use work. And it isn't even fundamentally true!

She shoves him and runs, spattering blood against the lawn. Her lungs feel as if they're bouncing in her chest. She's pissed off, exhilarated, and wondering all the time: _what is Crouch going to do next?_ Just to test him, she flicks her wand.

The walls of fire come crashing down. Tongues of flame criss-cross Algernon Garvenbach's front yard. Bouncing. Leaping. These are the impenetrable walls of _Everto Orbis_! And--God knows how--the damp lawn burns.

Bartemius finds himself in a very nasty position indeed. Steam rises around him, hissing a soprano note against the grand, infernal roar. It isn't--such a pity!--quite loud enough, though, to drown out the yells, inside his head and outside:

"Merlin's beard!"

"It's burning--it's all burning!"

_I will not die at her hands!_ All sense of responsibility melts. He can feel himself cringing from the heat, and curses himself for being so weak; it's simple, isn't it? She's a Death Eater. She's an unparalleled force of destruction. Look at what she's done. Look at the things she's consigned to die. People. Memories. All the precious things that burn so easily in the flames of pure, unflinching wrath...if someone doesn't stop her, what will be left? What can be relied on? What is a government that cannot control its citizens? Absolute control...Bellatrix stands against the forces of law and order, and she mocks them with her very existence. Something they can't control!

Bartemius finds himself running, faster than he could have believed--he's painfully thin, and well into middle age--parting the flames with his wand...and they let him through. Drop away from him as he, breathing hard, reaches the house.

He can hear her laughter, and Scrimgeour's yells. _Stop_, he thinks, pointlessly, uselessly. _I cannot allow this--you--you shouldn't--not _allowed_--it's wrong, so wrong_--

"Come and get me!" she shrieks, from above. He looks, and the house rises up in front of him like a black mass from hell, lit erratically at best by the flames. And she's up there, clinging to the side of the roof, one hand clenched like a vise on the point. He's on the ground, and can't get a clear shot at her. If he blew her down, she'd break into a thousand pieces, and perhaps her face would be just intact enough to identify her and start an investigation on everyone she ever knew.

Whatever he might like to think, in his upper-middle-class hypocrisy and emptiness, Bartemius is not a rational man. He risks death, dismemberment, torture, and the Imperius Curse, if he chooses to follow Bellatrix onto the roof. No matter how intelligent and law-abiding you are, a six-meter fall is a broken neck, a snapped spine, or death by rapid conversion into a bloody mess. But nevertheless. He can feel the fire reaching out to swallow him as he steps into the abyss--

--and reappears on the roof, wand at the ready. The roof's slope isn't really very steep, and there's a flat plane at the top; this is where Bartemius is standing now. To give you a rough sense of the dynamics of this battle, dear readers, I'll point out one thing: Bellatrix is dangling by one hand, which, if Bartemius were the sort of man who has no respect for rules, could _very easily_ be stomped on. Such a tactician, she is.

Her muscles ache as she pulls herself up, and blood squirts out of her shoulder. _Crouch_, she thinks, imagining, _will _die_ for what he has done!_ How nice, Bellatrix. You can't kill _everyone_!

Bellatrix gets to her feet, and glares. Against all odds, she cannot decide at the moment, whether or not her senseless murder of a Ministry of Magic official who _so_ deserves it is going to be any fun. I'm ashamed to admit that we all feel the same way. Bellatrix is evil, but Bartemius is utterly unlikeable! (No doubt he has his reasons. Caspar Crouch, Auror extraordinaire and abusive father of the year, left to fight Grindelwald one day and never came back.) Come on, boys and girls, let's cheer for the madwoman: "_Bellatrix! Bellatrix! Fuck him up! Fuck him up!"_  
I'm _such_ a good role model.

The fire crackles across the lawn, looking from their point of view like a lake of copper.

"Come and get me," whispers Bellatrix.

Bartemius steps foward, and now he's close enough that she can see the pure, unadulterated loathing in his eyes. "I will give you," he says, very calmly, while at the same time hoping that she doesn't take it, "_one_ chance to surrender."

She watches him very, very closely. A muscle twitches, unseen, in her temple.

"_Bellatrix! Bellatrix! Fuck him up!_"

"You won't be merciful, Crouch. Why should you be?" Her head drops mechanically, and anyone who's never heard a single thing about her might think, for a second, that it's a posture of contrition. "I wouldn't be merciful to you!"

And her wand hand jerks up and out; he blocks it. Damn. His wand draws lines in the air, red lines and green, long and short, all of them aimed at her heart. She twists. Kicks. Drops. Parries with her wand. Breathes hard as she resists him for as long as she can. He won't take her. He won't have her. Bellatrix will not be his. She's already got a master. (And damn, is he a bastard!) She's fighting for her life. If she falls, she's doomed; she's broken the law and must be punished. I'm shameless. Come on, all, let's compare fighting to sex once again!

They move together, in perfect synchrony.

She drops her guard and lets him in, just enough. He forces his way into the opening she's left. She _must_ want it. She's letting him take her, isn't she? She arches her back and moans, and her blood runs down her robes from the gash he's opened up. It feels _good_, it hurts like love and murder, and she screams like a demon as the blood pours out and down. He pulls back, revolted: _I've done it! I've attacked her!_ She asked for it. She asked for it! She's all over him, taunting and panting and stroking his jet-black hair, and he fights to remain in control...always in control...isn't he repressed? The monster in him wants to grab her, force her down, and--

--you didn't really think I was going to say that, did you? Voyeurs.

"Talented, aren't you?" She tosses her head. "Have you done this before?"

"Yes," he says coldly. "Many times."

"_Bellatrix! Bellatrix! Fuck him up! Fuck him up! Fuck him! Fuck him!"_

She reaches out and grabs his wrist, pulling him into her, and she caresses his face with her wand. "You could do better," she breathes. "I know you could do better! I have seen you!"

"Who are you?" he snarls, and slaps away her wand.

The flames seem to illuminate her; it's a silly and pointless dramatic device, but Bartemius sees it anyway. His hand almost moves to snatch away the mask. _And then the Ministry can bring you to justice, regardless of whether I win or lose_. They stand there, almost embracing. If Rodolphus or Theodosia were to see the little tableau, adultery would be a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

"I'm a Death Eater," she says, with childlike innocence. Her fingernails dig into his wrist, and the thin skin pops and bleeds.

He drives his wand into her chest, and spits, "_Stupe_--" She pulls away, and knocks it out of place; his spell sails, utterly pointless after all, over her shoulder.

"The Dark Lord," she rasps, "would give _so much_ to have you."

"_NO!_" he screams, and it rises up to the heavens: the proof that, whatever one might think, Barty Crouch has _some_ morals.

"You would be an asset--"

"_Never!_"  
"You could be so powerful, so respected--"

"You lie!" He throws himself at her, and his wand dances in his hand. Spells flicker across the rooftop like deadly fireflies. And Bartemius abandons all restraint. He feels mad, out of control, and he doesn't know how he'll ever stop; it's so easy to keep going. To fall into her rhythm. Jinx. Dodge. Blast away at her, watching her dark figure vanish behind the blaze of your his spells, and hoping that, when the light fades and his vision returns, she'll be gone.

She staggers crazily, drunkenly, and her blood dribbles across the roof tiles in a splatter of red. Bellatrix weaves and lashes, looking almost tiny, three meters away (not that far!), and the light from the lawn makes her an angel from hell, ready to condemn...

---

I don't even know what I'm saying anymore! Who _reads_ this crap? You're an idiot. Go away.

---

"Surrender to me," she roars, a temptress of a different sort, "and the Dark Lord will reward you--"

"The Dark Arts are an unthinkable travesty! They bring nothing! _Nothing!_ Your Dark Lord," he spits, eyes bulging, "is a liar and a madman and a fool. Nothing can be gained by following him!"

She snarls something in Latin, something incomprehensible even to Bartemius, and her wand goes up to the skies and pulls down the stars, dropping to earth and leaving an arc of fire in its wake. Bellatrix has a whip of fire. Hellfire. _Everto orbis_ is only one of her many tricks. She brings it up, drags it down, sends it flying; she swings it like a lasso, and Bartemius almost forgets to be judgmental and uptight, so shocked he is by her innovative spellwork, though in all probability, with his age and position, he's seen it before. Bellatrix is _just that damn good_.

"_YOU ARE THE LIAR!_ The Dark Lord--so much more powerful--so much greater--do not speak of him in those unworthy tones!"

Bellatrix and Bartemius have many things in common. Bellatrix is mad; Bartemius is rapidly becoming so. Bartemius is one step away, at all times, from the Dark Arts, and from unadulterated evil; Bellatrix sometimes forgets that there was ever a line, or that she crossed it when she swore allegiance. Bellatrix serves the Dark Lord; Bartemius serves the Ministry. And both of them--it might be a consequence of their powerful minds, or their lofty social positions, or their massive egos--say completely ridiculous and over-dramatic things when fighting for their lives. Next, it'll be "how dare thou givest me that funny look, when thou knowest that thou art an utter little shit?"

The whip comes down, with a smack and a crackle and a roar, and--Bellatrix, you're an idiot--the roof splits open. Screams emerge from the gash. Bartemius just stares. _Is she insane?_ Why yes, she is, and she doesn't understand even the most fundamental thing about architecture.  
---

The reason that architecture is so very important is that _they are standing on the roof_.

---

Tiles clatter down onto the lawn like a flock of dead bats, and pop in little explosions of pitch, sending acrid smoke up into the night. It's an insidious pollutant, and somewhere far, far away, fish die. Bartemius brings the sleeve of his robes up to cover his mouth, coughing, though he's been breathing smoke ever since Bellatrix had her little idea. He stares through narrowed eyes, and sees the hole clearly. The roof tiles have been scraped away like skin, leaving a few burnt and lopsided beams in place, sticking idiotically out of the wound in the house like broken wooden ribs. There may once have been a plaster ceiling. Light is flowing merrily out of the hole, bright and indistinct; it hurts to look at it. In the guts of the house, someone in black flickers by, yelling. The Aurors and Death Eaters are, to overextend the metaphor, the blood cells of Algernon Garvenbach's house, keeping things lively and interesting as they charge around the halls, and, after a pronounced pause, three of them bleed out onto the roof at once.

"_Stupefy!_" is the rallying cry of the night. One of the Death Eaters, a tall fellow with no particular individual characteristics, falls with a thud back into the hole, and lies among the rubble while other people do important things.

"Thank you, Scrimgeour," snaps Bartemius, not entirely sure that he's relieved to have an ally. Allies are _witnesses_. They call you out if you kill. He was _so_ close to snapping entirely...

Scrimgeour nods. "Garvenbach is indisposed," he says shortly, blocking Edmund's jinx with a clever twist of his wand. "Alive, but unable to take command. Therefore..."

Bartemius stops dead. His rising emotions hit something they can't quite change in his throat, and spiral around and away, warping into new shapes. "As Mr. Garvenbach's immediate subordinate, I am therefore..." His black eyes flicker from Bellatrix to Scrimgeour, and he isn't sure what to feel; all he knows is that he _should not be feeling this_. He tries to suppress it, but it's just too strong; he tries to feel honored, but some nasty little element of his soul says, and he listens: _it's about time!_  
"Acting Department Head. It looks like it. _Stupefy!_" Edmund dodges and staggers madly, nearly dropping off the roof to a horrible demise. Unfortunately, he catches himself. "Congratulations," says Scrimgeour briskly, and whirls to face Edmund. "The Auror reinforcements are here!" he barks over his shoulder. "Thought you ought to know!"

How convenient is this turn of events for Bartemius? He has an ally, a subordinate, a 'friend'; he's benefiting from Bellatrix's craziness (who'd have thought that Scrimgeour would be _right there_ when the roof imploded?) and from Garvenbach's trauma. It is immoral, of course, and very, very wrong, to take pleasure in someone else's suffering, even two or three links away in the chain reaction. Is it wrong to want a promotion? Is it evil to know that you could do better than the man who is currently a quivering heap, hiding in the bathroom while good and evil resolve their differences? Of course it is. That's why Slytherin House is full of bad, bad people.  
Bellatrix stares. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she calls across the gash. "Aren't you just so _happy_ that your dear Mister Garvenbach can't stop you taking over?" She laughs nastily, her poise regained. "Did you set us up to kill him? Are you sorry he isn't dead?"  
"How _dare_ you?" snarls Bartemius, and--though he never thought _he_'d be the one having the horrible mood swings--the rage is back.

"Are you sorry he isn't dead?"

Bartemius points his wand directly at her chest. "_SILENCIO!_" She touches her throat instinctively, and her face twists into a dark grimace that, and you should really know this by now, Bartemius misses entirely. She's wearing a mask, Silenced, and unable to hurt him any more. Or so he thinks.

She pounds the word out in her brain, as loudly as she possibly can: _IMPERIO!_ She isn't sure that it connected until she feels his mind, wrapped around the tip of her wand. It's a strong, iron mind, and she fights to control it. But her hatred and Bartemius's surging emotions make it easy to connect; she finds an opening where his feelings merge into hers, and follows it all the way down.

Bartemius feels everything go blank. The words occur to him as if she's saying them into his head:

"YES!" he chokes. He can't see Scrimgeour. He can't see anything. But the inconsistency doesn't bother him as he knows, somehow, that he's turning to face Scrimgeour, a look of mad desperation in his eyes. "Yes," he says, more calmly--why resist? They're _his_ words--and he knows Scrimgeour is staring, appalled. "Why deny it? I hoped for his death, hoped that my path to the Minister's spot would remain clear."

"Mr. Crouch!" snarls Scrimgeour, recoiling as if he's been bitten. "I don't--are you confessing--"

Bartemius's eyes gleam with evil without his interference. It certainly doesn't help that, even without Bellatrix's little assistance, he's a nasty and unpleasant sort of man, and his face is too easy to warp into the sneer of hatred and madness. "I confess. I orchestrated his death tonight. I knew what would happen. I delayed when I knew he was in danger. I persuaded my wife not to contact the Aurors until there was no chance that they could save him. It would have reflected poorly on the Ministry of Magic if I had not come here, so I was forced, eventually, to bring with me those Aurors I thought could be easily overpowered, and fight my friends...my _true_ allies..."

Some urgent part of him realizes what he's saying. _No! My _true _allies are the Ministry of Magic! I am not a conspirator...I am not a criminal..._ The words come out of his mouth, and he fights to pull them back. His eyes are becoming his again; he sees Rufus Scrimgeour, pressing a wand to his throat, Edmund Wilkes, blending into the background and snickering behind the mask, and, illuminated by the light spilling out of the gaping hole, Bellatrix Lestrange.

"You confess," says Scrimgeour, hard-eyed, "to conspiring with the Death Eaters to murder Algernon Garvenbach?"

"Conspiring with the Death Eaters?" he hears his cold voice inquire. "Scrimgeour, I _am_ a Death Eater."

This will _ruin_ his political career forever. Sometimes there really is nothing one can say to something so mind-boggling. In this case, I think I can manage a "fuck".

Scrimgeour gapes for a moment. Bartemius sees him clearly, and he can feel his lips move to confess something else. Something, no doubt, even more damaging...though I couldn't tell you, dear readers, what that could possibly be. His mind rushes back into his body, and there is _one solution_.

He can feel her, telling him to kill himself. A nice little melodramatic ending.

"_Avada_--NO! _AVADA KEDAV_--You _lie_! I am not--I could not--I _will_ not--"

Scrimgeour watches, poised to finish the job. Bartemius's bony white hands clench and unclench on his wand, twisting it around and around, pointing to his throat, then away.

_I will not die at the hands of this woman! I will not die under the Imperius Curse!_ (As it happens, he's quite wrong about that.) "_**I! AM! NOT! A! DEATH! EATER!**_" he shrieks, his voice oscillating between inhuman pitches, and when his wand explodes in a vicious jet of light, it's red light, not green, and it's entirely Bartemius's idea.

Edmund lazily reverses Bellatrix's Silencing, and stands back to watch the fun.

As it happens, though, there's very little to watch. Bellatrix's hastily-conjured Shield Charm barely does the job, splintering and fracturing as it sends the Stunner out into oblivion. She runs forward, snarling "_Incarcerous!_" to keep Scrimgeour out of the way, and jumps--

--neatly clearing the gash, and landing, robes swirling around her, directly in front of Bartemius. She's panting, her eyes shining through her mask.  
"You want to know who I am, don't you?" she breathes. "You want to know who could possibly commit these _atrocities_. I almost killed you...I could do it again..." She reaches out and touches his face. He pulls back, shuddering, and she smiles. "What would you give," she says softly, "to know who I am?"

"_I will bring you to justice_," he snarls.

"Perhaps you will," she says, and her hand caresses her mask. She pulls down, slowly, tantalizingly, and he, staring, disbelieving, unable to comprehend that she's showing him at last, gets a glimpse--

--of black hair. White skin. No more. She turns as her face is about to be revealed, and he sees a lock of her hair fall from her hood, revealing her pale cheek...and she whirls on the spot, Disapparating. It would be just too easy for anything else to happen.

He stares at the place she stood, willing her to come back.

"Death Eaters!" she screams, from somewhere far away, "we have _won! We have triumphed!_" Edmund nods, and Disapparates, but not before slashing a lovely gash into Rufus Scrimgeour's face.

So much effort. So little reward. What did it all _mean_?

Garvenbach's death was never in The Plan. As for Bartemius...his suicide would have set off the next part of their strategy. Tonight was a total failure on all counts, on both sides. Only two things were achieved. One, Algernon Garvenbach is almost comatose in the bathtub, and his house is burning down. Two, Bellatrix is in a good mood from her little dramatic exit. Rodolphus will be a very lucky man tonight.

---

Can I explain The Plan to you now, or is there no point?

It was simple, anyway. Bring Barty Crouch and his Aurors to the scene of the crime. Kill them all. At the last minute, Bellatrix chooses to fuck it all up. Isn't it nice, knowing that total destruction was averted by an accident of brain chemistry? Almost worse than it not being averted at all, isn't it? It's a sickening thing to thank Bellatrix for anything; it's worse to be grateful that she didn't go through with it after all.

---

And so here we are. The denouement of the burning house. Everything's neatly tucked away; who cares that most of them survived? Algernon Garvenbach's family is _dead_! And for what? Stupidity, recklessness, fanaticism, and Evan Rosier's Plan. Everyone loses.

"Mr. Garvenbach?" asks Fabian, his eyes damp. He was one of the later-arriving Aurors, and it was his responsibility to put out the lawn and summon the Obliviators and quietly try to fix everything in the few minutes he had before the proper authorities arrived. Now he's sitting at a bedside in St. Mungo's--we _do_ seem to come here a lot, don't we, dear readers?--and holding Garvenbach's trembling hand, drawing on every reserve of compassion he possesses, and...is it enough? He can feel all of the pain in his experience being sucked dry, and he can't put himself into a frame of reference that even _begins_ to approach Garvenbach's excessive suffering and angst. "Is there anything I can do?"

Garvenbach stares at the ceiling. "Is my son injured?" he asks finally, half-closing his eyes.

Fabian doesn't expect the tears, but they come anyway. He squeezes Garvenbach's hand, and knows that it isn't nearly enough. "I'm very sorry, sir," he says, in the voice he mastered but never wanted to use, the _I'm grieving as much as you are_ voice, the _he died like a hero_ voice, "but Al..." He trails off, and it's like having his optic nerves tugged and his tear ducts squeezed. Something twists behind his eyes and holds on when he sees Garvenbach's expression: it's a wordless cry of "_NO!_", and a whisper that trails off into the dark. Tears are bubbling up in the old man's gray eyes. "I'm so sorry," he says. "Really, I am."

"There was nothing you could do," says Garvenbach, and he bites back his tears and tries to dispense his avuncular smile. It's obviously fake. "Please tell me that Al didn't die in pain," he whimpers, and the tears fall from his eyes like fat, transparent beetles.

"He didn't suffer."

Garvenbach stares, looking lost, and he shakes his head slowly as tears drip down his nose. "It was all so quick..." he murmurs absently. "What happened?" He looks up. "I was a Hufflepuff," he says, in a strangely transported voice. "Did you know that, Prewett? I was going to tell my boy that he could be in any house he wanted to be in...that he could be whatever he wanted to be...if you ever have a son, Prewett, I want you to tell him that. _Dreams_...they're important...they keep us alive...it wasn't your fault...it wasn't his fault..." He looks into Fabian's eyes. "I'm going into work tomorrow, Prewett. I have to. We have to stop them. Now that I know..." And he breaks down and wails.

---

**How do these chapters **_**just keep getting longer?**_

**I have no idea.**

**Reviews are, frankly, not expected.**


	10. Chapter 10:A Romantic Interlude, As Such

**Disclaimer: I do not own Rodolphus, Bellatrix, or, considering how many times this basic plot has been done, anything about this chapter. I don't think there are any other OCs called Al Garvenbach, senior or junior, so I, in all likelihood, own them. (However, my saying this will automatically ensure that, not only has the name 'Algernon Garvenbach', silly as it may be, been used before, but it was used several weeks before the posting of Chapter Eight, and I now look like an utter twit.)**

**A/N: This was originally the ending of Chapter Nine, but I eventually decided that it worked better as a stand-alone chapter. Also, Chapter Nine was getting utterly and completely out of hand. Consider it, if you will, a bit of a **_**reward**_** after the horrific(ally long) action. Well, a reward for RodolphusxBellatrix shippers, anyway, though my silly-and/or-abusive version of the pairing is quite likely to make many of these shippers angry.**

**Plot Summary, For Those Who Found Chapter Nine To Be Of An Unreadable Length: Bellatrix is annoyed at Rodolphus for various unclear reasons, generally involving Rabastan. Nothing is new there. Rodolphus attempts to redeem himself in the eyes of his schmookiepoo by killing people with great relish. Again, not much is new. Aliens invade the earth, but this is unimportant and not actually mentioned, nor will it have any bearing on the story beyond a throwaway joke in the A/N. After a brief moment of camaderie, Bellatrix abandons Rodolphus when she decides that torturing Barty Crouch, Senior, is far more interesting. Then Crouch gets away, for reasons that are never made entirely clear, because Slytherite is a hack.**

**Summary of Plot Summary: Bad things happened. People died. Aliens.**

**Warnings: Swearing, dysfunctional relationship, alcohol use, some blood. As this chapter is exclusively about the Lestranges and their creepy relationship, this should not be news. However, and it probably says something creepy about me that I wrote this, it also contains explicit but "offscreen" sex. This chapter earns its M rating. Feel free to skip it, as it's largely a character sketch and doesn't really advance the plot.**

**Things That You Know You Want To See: See above.**

**---**

Rodolphus killed Algernon Junior, slicing him to ribbons in almost the same way that he gutted Al's mother. He butchered the poor child, gleefully, remorselessly, with no silly ideas that tonight could have ended any other way. Al (isn't it sad that he has a name now, in death?) was always doomed; is the moral of the story never to piss off Rodolphus Lestrange? It wasn't out of _anger_ that he killed. Is the moral to avoid those who would do you harm? Cowardice: it saves your daddy so much anguish. Is there any moral whatsoever? Is this whole charade tasteless of me? Al is _dead_.

Of course it is!

Rodolphus, irretrievably insane, brutal, loving, broken, hateful Rodolphus...what a sick fuck. He's almost psychotic enough to be sympathetic, in some mad way that will be suicide for all involved, but not now. He's a _child killer_. And that, dear kiddies, is horrific. Did you ever stop to think about how many children he must have killed away from your prying eyes? Did his freak fetish for bloodshed not tell you everything you needed to know? He's dangerous, stay away. He's a murderer, a torturer, Lord Voldemort's most loyal brute; _don't fall in love with him!_ And now he's done away with little Al. Do you still love him?

Of course you do!

Al was a child, a pure, sweet, innocent child, and his purity is only reinforced when there's nothing left of what he used to be. He loved his mum. He always said his prayers. He's a good boy, a dead boy, a cheap shock for the idealistic; who _cares_ about Al? You know as well as I why he was here. He was a target by his very nature, born to be cut down. Born to turn all of you against Rodolphus, who, after all, never had the benefit of a proper upbringing, and, moreover, feels the repercussions of his great-grandad's sick sibling lusts every time he breathes. Rodolphus is a victim of society! He's not bad, he's mad! And he's broken, so delightfully broken, sacrificed upon the altar so that you sick fucks can wish it all away.

More than that, he kills the little twits who half deserve to die!

_...can still feel him bleeding._

Rodolphus stares at the page, willing some sort of inspiration, some sort of _intelligent thought,_ to come. Poor thing. Hope springs eternal, doesn't it? The scarlet ink flickers in the candlelight, and, subconsciously (he hasn't got enough of a consciousness to do it any other way), he grins, remembering something _else_ red that looks pretty in the light.

_Little bastard died too quickly. They always do._

_Still can't believe they fell for it._

If Rodolphus were capable of articulating his thoughts, they would be something like this..._and they came streaming in like soldiers, probably knowing that they were going to die, but they went anyway. The stupid fools were _heroes_. Idiots. Heroes bleed. They screamed soprano, even the men, and they died in the green light of our wands. It was a tragedy. Bodies all over the floor, and no wedding. None of them will ever be kissed again. And it was _fun_._ And because he's Rodolphus, he'd add a few 'fuck's.

"What are you doing?" Bellatrix snaps, but it's really an accusation, and a nasty one at that. She _knows_ what Rodolphus is doing.

He holds up the book briefly, and the ink runs, once again reminding him of blood (or a nice red wine). "You impatient?" He laughs darkly, even when she doesn't think it's funny at all. She has her own things to mock, and she gets revenge:

"How silly of me to hope that you'd given up that stupid diary," she mutters, and he almost likes to think that she's angry because of Rabastan and his little...interference.

"Fuck off. You know what I told you."

_Bastards died like animals. All of them. (Memo: was the kid's death in the plan? Ask Rosier)_

_Bella's pissed off now that she has to fuck me. Probably almost glad I'm writing this (she'd never admit it), just so she can wait before I take her. But she can't go back on it. She won't. Might try, though, but I won't let her. She's _mine_. Sometimes she forgets that._

_If I need to remind her that she swore she'd be mine forever, I will. It'll be different from the others because it's Bella, but it's never _that _different. I've never fucked anyone else, so I don't know what it would feel like...but hurting Bella is almost the same when the blood flows. Even when I remember it's her, it's so close to the same feeling. It's better, even, because she hurt me. So we're even, and I don't have to hate her anymore._

_I don't want to be her master. I just want her to love me. And to know that that's what she fucking has to do, or I'll kill her._

_I love her and I hate her._

"_I meant him to find it. It was a decoy. I meant to do that._ So you think that you can lie to me and make it all better?" she rasps, using her own voice.

He nibbles the tip of the quill, noticing vaguely that his hand doesn't feel too good, and wonders how he can make his declarations of impassioned confusion any more melodramatic (so reminiscent of the grand theatre, and the opera he adores). "You think I'm lying?" Rodolphus turns, brown eyes wide and empty. "Why the hell would I have left it _there_ if I wasn't trying? Why the fuck else would I have said those things I don't believe? I told you this already, Bella...I'm fucking Rabastan up." He grins like a little boy. "Think I'm stupid, don't you?"

"Yes, I do." Bellatrix, with her hair like oil in the light, unspooling from her lowered hood, and the eyes from hell, is Rodolphus's tragic beauty, proving, mainly, that he doesn't quite understand. "You _are_. Didn't you know?"

"Sometimes, Bella, you're such a fucking_--" _And here, Rodolphus uses a word that I'm sure you all know, perverse little boys and girls that you are. Therefore, I don't need to spell it out...He closes the diary, and flicks his wand; the locks click shut and slide across the cover. The diary is cut off from Rabastan's curiosity (would that he were here to read it), sealed more tightly than Bellatrix's black leather corsets.

"That's exactly what you wish me to be, isn't it? Don't deny it. You get what you want, Rodolphus, and then..." She cocks her head dramatically. "You complain." But there's a hint of warmth in her tight smirk, and there might well be more in her tight...

...gaze as she tortures his face with her eyes. They're hard and heavy and black, like little dabs of lead on the canvas of the portrait from hell.

Rodolphus likes those eyes. "Insatiable shit that I am, Bella. Mad fucking bastard that I am." She scoffs, and lets him know with her eyes _exactly_ what she thinks of his accent--at times he sounds almost Glaswegian, and that doesn't do much for his claims of noble French ancestry--and his 'special' grammar (which doesn't do much for his claims of literacy). If he notices--deluded fool that he is--he doesn't show it. "I'm such a fucking hedonist...isn't that the word Rabastan uses? _Hedonist._ Pretty word, that. Sounds French." Bellatrix waits, wondering if there will be any more. Rodolphus takes his own sweet time, blank-eyed, absently running a finger over the back of his hand. He has an attention span, I swear; he'll stare at anything forever. Can he concentrate on what he's saying long enough for it to make it out of his brain with no unfortunate diversions? Do I even need to say the word "no"? No.

Her chest quivers a little, under the robes, and Rodolphus notices. He devours her, every last tiny sensual impression of her body leaving a little burst of flavor before it dissolves. The way the rough black cloth of her Death Eater robes drapes over her shoulder, folding a bit at her neck and her cocked head. Her lips, tense with infinite disdain, pulling in a bit at the corner and forming a nasty little smile. All the little things about her that could possibly inspire lust, and a few that were never meant to. His brain forms long, purple descriptions of her, and they boil down into one thing: _She's mine, and I'm going to fuck her, and there's not a damn thing she can do about it._

He notices that the direction of her gaze has changed while he stared. Why is she looking at his hand? His hand isn't that interesting, is it?

"You're bleeding," Bellatrix hisses.

It stings.

There are red-hot metaphorical bees under his skin, buzzing and chewing away at his tendons and his nerves, and...he looks down. "Fuck."

"It took you so long to notice, Roddy," she says, and comes over to take a closer look. The cover of the diary is spattered with blood, and the mahogany top of the desk is smeared red; his split palm is vomiting up little bubbles of gore. It's hot, as if iron flecks are under the skin he no longer has, heating from some mysterious source until they melt through his flesh and bone. Of course, he isn't that articulate about it. "Which one of them was it? Who did this to you?"

Her concern, reluctant though it may be, is as warm on his skin as the coagulating streaks of blood.

She strokes the wound with one finger, eyes flickering from it to him, and he pretends that she's really concerned before he realizes that she _is_, she _cares_, she doesn't like to see him hurt by anyone but her. Self-mutilation is the obvious next step, and perhaps, one day, Rodolphus will make the connection, and Bellatrix, unimpressed, will gleefully join in.

"It was Crouch, wasn't it?"

He opens his mouth, and sees the intensity in her expression, the need she has to believe it, and his resistance gives up and goes away. "Yeah," he growls. "It was Crouch."

"He will die, Rodolphus. He is...an enemy of the Dark Lord. I came so close to killing him tonight--I could have done it--"

Rodolphus realizes what, in that sentence, bothers him. "You didn't kill him?" It isn't, technically, his immediate intention to sound so utterly incredulous. "You had the old bastard and you didn't do it?" His hand comes down, hard, on the desk. She flinches, and glares. "_What in hell, Bellatrix?_"

Thank you, Rodolphus. I've wanted to say that for so long.

"It was not my fault!" she snaps, blood pouring into her face. "Scrimgeour was there, Rodolphus! He would have taken command immediately--it would have been suicide to try--you were below, fighting the Aurors! I was alone, save for Wilkes--Wilkes is nothing! To kill Crouch then would have been a monumental mistake!" Her chest goes up and down, in and out, like a broken jack-in-the-box, and the lead in her eyes heats up and burns.

"Right. A monumental mistake. Yeah." Rodolphus watches the blood trickle out of his hand. It's coming more slowly than it did during the fight, pumping less insistently out, and he wonders briefly how much is left. It's sharper than the ache in his throat, the ache that comes from loving Bella, and--if he tries--it feels hot and liquid and almost good. It feels like the taste of blood. _His_ blood. _His_ blood that Bellatrix cares so much about. Red like cherries, warm like a kiss, the blood that Bellatrix wants to draw herself; the blood that no one else can draw. The blood that holds them together, closer than lovers, closer than siblings. Masochism breeds melodrama. "You could have killed Scrimgeour," he says at last. "I know how good you are, Bella. You could have killed them all like I killed the kid. Fucked them up."

Bellatrix goggles at him, finding herself devoid of anything scathing to say. She strides away from him, and flings herself down on the bed, her back turned to Rodolphus. He thinks he hears her whisper unpleasant things under her breath.

Rodolphus takes his wand out, and siphons the blood off the desk. The blood on his hand stays where it is. He's had worse injuries. Pain isn't so bad.

"Bella," he growls.  
She expresses her feelings on the matter with a simple hand gesture.

He laughs. Vicious contempt: _that_'s his Bella. He gets up and sits down beside her, stroking her shoulders, or at least making an effort; she gasps when he touches her left shoulder blade, and he assumes it's something he did wrong. His hand stays there, and finds the wet patch quite by accident. His fingers skate over something warm, and the damp cloth sticks to her skin:

"Bella, you're hurt."

"I know!" she spits, still not looking at him. Her muscles are tight under his hand, and she twitches as he presses deeper. (Rodolphus, dearie, I think you said it best yourself: _what in hell?_) "You think I need your _help_?" Bellatrix's back arches involuntarily as Rodolphus's fingers find the gash and slide inside, circling, massaging through her clothes--

"It was Crouch, wasn't it?"

He doesn't catch the incantation, leaving him without any sort of warning before her spell swats away his hand.

"Fuck," he growls, exasperated, "what do I have to do, Bella? You're hurt--"  
She turns just enough to let him see her pretty face. "--I did not ask for your help--"

"--and you're damn well going to get it--"

"--where were _you_ when I fought him? The most powerful man in the Ministry--"

Perhaps that's an overstatement. Bartemius is only the _second_ most powerful wizard tasked with enforcing justice in the Wizarding world. There's no shame in being hurt by him as it is, Bellatrix; you're exaggerating his power to make yourself feel better. And that's a shade pathetic.

"What, you want me to _protect_ you? That it? _Is that it?_ You want me to save your frigid little arse? Is big scary Barty hurting you, Bella? What'd he do? Did he make the bitch bleed?" Rodolphus's blank eyes are almost more disturbing when he's angry: they _show nothing_. They feel nothing.

"I think he _did_," snaps Bellatrix, and her gaze jumps to Rodolphus's bisected hand. Rodolphus, the bitch's bitch. (Translation: Rodolphus, who takes it like a woman from the nasty, unpleasant female.) "My little bitch is bleeding, isn't he? Is he jealous?"

"Did Crouch _fuck_ you? That what happened up there?" His fingers slide under her robes, even as she squeals, and he pulls her close to him, drawing his wand with the other hand. _Look at her! She doesn't want it, does she? She agreed she would!_ Rodolphus doesn't consciously decide to be brutal, but there it is; his wand's resting against the corner of her eye. Will her demise be magical or entirely mundane? Or is it possible that she'll save herself and keep her bloody mouth shut?

But she's _Bellatrix_. If she were a quiet, submissive little lady, Rodolphus wouldn't give a flying fuck whether or not he could have her. That's love for you. Don't ever fall in love, kids: it isn't real unless it hurts.

"Are you going to rape me?" she spits, and throws her head back. His wand follows, of course--did she think she would be freed so easily? He's close. Too close. His fingers are sliding in and out of her back, clumsy and unrefined (_he can't begin to compare!_), and his hot breath is almost condensing on her skin, adding another pretty layer to the slick of sweat and blood across her elegant, easily ripped-open throat. (_Rodolphus is nothing beside the Dark Lord!_)

"You said you would," says Rodolphus, eyes vacant. And that's really all he knows about the matter.

She could, quite probably, kill him.

Her muscles twitch and writhe, aching, hot, almost liquefied under her skin, and they're useless, useless, pathetic and _useless_ against Rodolphus's superior strength and size--

--he holds her like a doll, and maybe he doesn't know that she'll break--

--of course he knows, that's why he does it--

--"I suppose," she whispers, "that I did, Rodolphus. I said that I would."

She stops resisting (_he has a _right_ to me, does he not?_) and yet the bastard doesn't loosen his hold--

--but now it's somehow tender and affectionate, even though nothing's really changed--

--warm, soft, sensual--

--human--

--"Right." Rodolphus licks his full lips. Slowly. Tenderly. They glisten a little with his saliva, and she's reminded of Voldemort's face as he spoke to them, but _nowhere_ near as beautiful. She doesn't imagine that tongue between her legs, and when she does, she shudders and wonders why he thinks she likes it.

Disgusting--

--he's like a _brother_--

--His fingers scrape across her breast, and stay there. He squeezes her like a ripe fruit, too hard, _claiming_ her, and she wouldn't mind at all if Voldemort did it, but Rodolphus is just too much. Somewhere along the line, her robes came off. She couldn't tell you when, or how, or who. She could easily--unfortunately--tell you why. He wants to put a thing into another thing, where, she's almost certain, she doesn't want it to go. He desires her, doesn't he? He wants to--

--she can't force the words into her brain--

--and yet, it's just something physical. Something unpleasant and a bit absurd that she and Rodolphus do every so often. She can't imagine _why_. Sex with him is on the same level as letting him stamp on her foot: it's vaguely painful and absurd, and he wants to, but she doesn't know why he does or why she would. She supposes she might let him. He's her husband.

"You're bleeding," he growls, and perhaps it says something about Bellatrix that she thinks, mainly, _when will this be over?_ "You don't know how randy that makes me--"

She meets his eyes, and her body tenses for the inevitable. "You're sick," she snarls, "you, with your dead eyes and your animal lusts, _knowing _nothing, _seeing_ nothing. Inhuman, subhuman, barely alive, Rodolphus, you're a freak!"

Rodolphus embraces her; _he's warm_, she thinks with a twinge of nausea. His breath almost, but not quite, matches hers. "You're just like me, Bella. Don't deny it," he says, and his voice is warped by lust and, unfortunately, by ten packs a day. "We're mad fucks, right?"

Her blood tastes bitter on his tongue.

---

So that's it, then. Rodolphus does Bellatrix. Goodnight. That's all there is.

Are you still reading this? You're all perverts and voyeurs and I _hate all of you._

---

When he's finished, she can tell immediately. Isn't that progress?

His breathing slows from labored panting to almost nothing. He holds her gently, lovingly, and wonders why she won't look him in the eye.

Her skin is soft and white, with little red lines traced across it by his fingers, pink crescents where he bit her, and blue bruises adorning whatever parts happened to struggle. She's slim and graceful, and Rodolphus is intrigued by her _elegance_, the delicate, clean lines of her body. Her nipples, he thinks, are like rosebuds; I'll agree with that one, if only for the stupidity and accuracy of the metaphor. Roses have thorns. Thorns are painful. Pain is what you get if you touch Bellatrix's breasts. There's something to it, but not quite what he intended.  
She's tense even now, after he's stopped hurting her. There's blood--he touches it, and decides that it isn't _all_ blood, it's the wrong consistency--flowing from the torn gash between her lovely thighs. Bellatrix is the very portrait of the bitch submitting.

"Bella."  
"_Bella_," she hisses. "_Bella_." He waits. "You have a lot of nerve, Lestrange."

The first time she called him _Roddy_, or even _Rodolphus_, was after they were married. He's been Lestrange to her for far longer than he's been Rodolphus. But every time he hears it, he thinks that it'll be the last...he's always wrong. (The small absurdity of her _own_ surname now being Lestrange doesn't seem to occur to her. Who, really, is surprised?)

He caresses her ribcage, and she shudders. It's a knee-jerk rejection, without pausing to consider how much pleasure his touches could give her; so typical of Bellatrix. "You're pissed off at me."

"Why, in Merlin's name, shouldn't I be?" she explodes, ripping herself free and yanking the sheets over her naked body. The blood doesn't heed practical considerations, and it keeps flowing, soaking almost instantly through the silky red sheets and dribbling back down onto her. "You don't even realize--Merlin, you don't even _understand_--you think I _desire you_, Lestrange?"

"Yeah," growls Rodolphus, "I could tell, Bella." His voice is gentle; he isn't angry at all. Not now. He got what he wanted, and it was almost better than killing (almost). He hasn't had a drink since before they left, and he'll be needing one soon (alcoholism doesn't wait), but he's so relaxed. So calm. He feels _good_. If Bellatrix let him inside her more often, he might not be nearly so homicidal.

What does that say about Bellatrix's 'marital duties,' then?

"You're deluded, Lestrange," Bellatrix mutters. "Insane."

"Think I have to be," Rodolphus says, leaning over and stroking the unfortunate shoulder poking out of the sheets, "to love you."

"...to love me," she echoes. Still, she rolls over to face him. There's disgust in her eyes, but not nearly enough. "You adore me, Lestrange. Isn't that true? You worship me?"

He stares into her face, and--though light falls on his retinas, and his optic nerves transmit the image to his brain--his eyes don't see a thing. "Yeah."

"Such love," Bellatrix whispers. "Such _passion_. Shouldn't you feel those things for the Dark Lord? Isn't it true, Lestrange, that such _adoration_ should be for the Dark Lord and the Dark Lord alone?" And there's a nasty tinge to her voice, an accusatory overtone: _treason! Betrayal! Perfidy!_

The light from the candle falls, broken into a million pieces as it flickers and quavers with the excitement of the moment, on the two of them, and--if you know nothing about them at all--it almost looks like they're in love. But that's a pathetic joke.

Rodolphus doesn't know how to lie, or even that he should. Here it comes. "You're just like him," he rasps. "In your eyes, it's the same. The same damn thing."

"And you feel for him?" she says. _He said--he says--the same--we're just the same--the same power--the same _glory_--he lies--he _lies, she thinks, and God knows what it means.

His eyes are innocent, like a child's. There's always been something wrong with those eyes. They're empty, vacant, and to look into them is to see something _not quite human_, something that laughs at reality and doesn't see sanity the way we do. The first thing people notice about Rodolphus Dante Lestrange is his huge brown eyes. Everyone, no matter how jaded, shudders and turns away. They aren't the eyes of a murderer. They aren't the eyes of a bastard. They're the uncanny eyes of a corpse, and even now, when the rest of his face is lit with emotion, his eyes are silent.

"_The same damn thing_." By which he means: love.

---

Now that you've thrown the story against the wall, please be so kind as to retrieve it.

---

Time passes in the usual way. It's been almost three hours since Al Garvenbach died; Bellatrix is starting to really feel the effects of the neurochemical stew that killing shot through her brain. Even Rodolphus couldn't hold the good feelings away _forever_. She lies in his arms, and she doesn't fight. Movement almost, but not quite, spoils the effect, sending the warm feelings currently inundating her body sloshing down and out through her fingers, pressed out by gravity. There's no metaphor or snippet that will _quite_ suffice, shamelessness be damned. I'll say, to be done with it, that it's hot and electric and almost unbearable, and that she has Julie Garvenbach's bleeding, amorphous body pasted inside her eyelids, and that she's _perhaps_ wondering what will happen if she does the same thing to Rodolphus. Rodolphus is bigger and stronger and he won't go down easily. What a challenge. She'll do the same thing but _more_, then, until there's nothing left but blood—(Lovely.)

Rodolphus himself? He wants a drink.

"Bella."

_Like a puppy_, she thinks, and mentally scrubs her retinas clean. Shame. She'd almost topped herself in bloodiness. "What is it now?"

"You want a glass of something?" He nuzzles her shoulder. She's bleeding again. So tempting. Rodolphus, Rodolphus, _you are not a vampire._ Learn that and you will go far in life, possibly as far as Azkaban.

Bellatrix nods sharply. He finds his wand and flicks it twice; the cabinet in the corner shudders and disgorges a bottle of something tasty, red, and toxic. (It's dusty, yes, but there are fingerprints in the dust, clearly indicating that _someone's _been drowning his conscience lately.) A glass settles into his hand, and he fills it to the rim. Of course. He laughs darkly as Bellatrix sneers: "Hedonist, remember?" Perhaps it proves that he knows what she's sneering about. Perhaps it proves that he knows three big words and uses them, at random, as a defensive measure against any implications that he might be a drunken, brutish, moronic pig.  
"_Drunk_," she corrects him, pouring her own.

"Same thing."

Hedonists have some _class_, Rodolphus.

He downs a considerable portion of the wine in one go, splattering droplets across the no-longer-so-lovely sheets. It's _delicious_. He's rich and boorish and he's _allowed_ to do that, damn it! "Did well tonight, didn't we?"  
"For the Dark Lord," she retorts, holding up her glass.

He echoes her. "For the Dark Lord." They couldn't possibly drink to the name of anyone else. The man that both of them love. Yes, it's sordid; don't even mention Rabastan's contributions to the romantic situation, or we'll be here all night.

He leans over and kisses Bellatrix. His lips taste of red wine and blue blood. She bites his tongue. "Is this your tragedy? You promised me one, did you not?"

"You want one?" he teases gently, pawing at her throat.

And Bellatrix smiles. She can't _possibly_ be drunk yet. That would be ridiculous. So she must really be giving him a smile that is aggressive, but...affectionate. "Only if you die with the rest of them."

"You first. That's how it works, isn't it? The bitch dies, and the hero..."

"So this is theatre, and you're the hero? No, Lestrange--_Rodolphus_--" (his eyes widen, and he grins without quite knowing why) "you're the victim. You'll rot alone, unmourned, and the Mudbloods will have us all."  
Another kiss. Against all odds—but hell, I know by now that Rodolphus and odds don't mix—he likes the thought.

And they're reconciled. They drink and fight and make their evil plans, and when Rabastan comes home, he finds them asleep in each other's arms.

---

When Rabastan comes home.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Though, in my opinion, the more pressing question is: _why is the little freak in their room in the first place_?

---

**Well, there we go.**

**No, I can't write a **_**short **_**character sketch to save my life.**


	11. Part 11: He Whines, But He's Read Hegel!

**Disclaimer: Please see previous chapter.  
Now that you've done that, I would like you to explain why you think that I have been, suddenly and (most likely) unwillingly, Transfigured into J.K. Rowling between chapters.  
Go on, I'm waiting.  
A/N: Never one to disappoint my readership base, I'm pleased to announce that the distressing lack of updates is due more to high school than anything else. Unless you would prefer, in lieu of actual updates, a pompous lecture on the complete works of John Stuart Mill, when fandom and academia clash, fandom goes. If you, for unknown and probably unnerving reasons, **_**would**_** prefer such a chapter, however, I would be pleased to offer you "Marked for Death II: Slytherite and the Academic Update Curse of Deadly Doom."  
Moreover, November was National Novel Writing Month. December was National "Holy Crap, It's Finals Month, And Look At All The Shopping Slytherite Has To Do" Month. Draw your own conclusions.  
Warnings: I find myself rather amused that I'm still warning the readers about foul language, eleven chapters in. As usual, there are some disturbing moments and references to violence. Yes, it's gratuitous vulgarity. I need to justify the M rating **_**somehow**_**. On a less degenerate note, there are also Rabastan's odd stream-of-consciousness interludes. And there's pseudo-incestuous squee, unfortunately punctuated by suspiciously insistent declarations of heterosexuality. Rabbykins isn't fooling anyone. A poorly characterized small child is implicitly horribly injured, but no one actually cares. Slytherite inserts a very subtle **_**Monty Python and the Holy Grail**_** reference. Yes, there actually is one, and yes, it's extremely subtle, and it would have gone completely unnoticed had I not mentioned this. Feel free to drive yourselves crazy looking for it.  
Summary: Rabastan comes back in a gloriously anticlimactic scene. Gobs of purple prose are devoted to this purpose.**He came back.  
Rabastan knows perfectly well that he's a coward. Bellatrix has reminded him of his exalted abilities in the field of irrational terror many, many times; if she wanted someone less neurotic, she should have said so earlier. She should have stopped abusing him long, long ago. Everything that's wrong with him is all _her_ fault. Unless it's Rodolphus's fault for getting piss drunk and beating him to within an inch of his life; that's quite possible, too. Roddy and Miss Bellatrix, of course, are only relevant if we discount the ill-founded notion that perhaps Rabastan's brutish father (the father Rodolphus resembles more and more) made him the nellie boy that he is (and that's only _after_ his mother's death in childbirth left him melodramatically scarred). In simpler terms, it's all genetics, or else he's got a bad case of hormones, or just bad luck. Blame anyone. The end result of the stories (all along the lines of _what went wrong_) is always the same: Rabastan's a miserable, girlish little twit.  
And he came back to the people who made him that way…if that's what you choose to think. (Have it your own way, then, and don't come to _me_ to complain.) He's strolling brightly into the lion's den, asking to be mauled.  
But what other options does he really have? He's _scared_. _And_, he reminds himself every so often, just to make sure that it never quite slips his mind, _that's pathetic._  
Disheveled and drugged to the gills, full of hate topped up with sick, masochistic longing to be loved, and, _above all_, scared (and, yes, pathetic), Rabastan has come home.  
Besides, he can walk (without pissing himself and risking a heart attack—those little details are all-important for the self-respecting manly man) now. Bellatrix won't stand a chance.

* * *

I suppose that, now that I've piqued your curiosity, I have to justify myself. Rabastan's come back, yes, but it's not for tea and biscuits.  
We're going back a few hours. Let's set the scene for our little psychological drama. Imagine a windowless room somewhere in the bowels of the esteemed St. Mungo's. We've been here twice before. It's small (cozy, we might call it) and Spartan: our invalid hero has to his name a cheap cot, two chairs, and a nightstand. The Healers, well-intentioned bastards that they are, took away his coffee and his wireless.  
Nevertheless, Rabastan is still an incorrigible insomniac. The slats of the bed are digging into his back through the thin mattress; the candlelight is too bright and it hurts his eyes; his throat is full of something rather viscous and thick, which, every so often, he tries to suck back into his chest; and he can't feel anything else. How is he supposed to sleep? The Healers are _barbarians_, expecting him to recover from what, he's sure, is no more than a mess of cuts and bruises (though he's equally sure that Bellatrix slit him open and pulled out his guts—how is he supposed to know? He can't lift his head to see it), and then giving him such tender care. Perhaps he'll take it to court.  
_Putting my trust in our legal system_, he thinks sullenly. _I've lost all hope, haven't I?  
I suppose it could always get worse.  
Perhaps Bellatrix will kill me next time—if there is a next time!—and I can miss out on the _joy_ of lying here, imbecilic and rotting, waiting for the old biddies to bring me the potions that taste of piss, while Barty and Regulus go off and be men in this big wide old world of ours, and only visit me on Christmas—  
_Something far too irrelevant to interrupt his dramatic monologue goes _thump_ in the distance. People are yelling on the floor below him and rushing madly about on the floor above, sweeping the ceiling with hollow thuds and crashes and making the chandelier wobble merrily above Rabastan's head. But I won't burden you with the details. In other news, there's a fly on the wall. It's buzzing.  
_Damn insect. As if it has nothing better to do, really, than torment me—_"I'm alive and free and loving it, and you're rotting in this hell"—_don't I get enough of that as it is? Is everyone in this godforsaken country out to get me? What the hell did _I_ do, that it was _me_? Why not Rodolphus, big strong Rodolphus with his moronic stare and that stupid bint he likes so much? Why not the bitch herself? Evan Rosier? Edmund Wilkes? Stupid poofters, too damn _clever_ and selfish_ _for women, what did they ever do for us? Why _me?  
_I wish I had Algernon Garvenbach's or Millicent Bagnold's or—hell, why not?—Barty Crouch's job. I'd reinstate the death penalty and give out life sentences in Azkaban for saying half the things Bellatrix says. She'd be _punished_. I'd make myself a lord among Wizardkind. I'd fix everything that's wrong with our backward little nation, and…and I'd still be a crippled pansy, and I _still _wouldn't be able to do anything about that bloody insect!  
_His mental rant trails off. There isn't much more to say. He still boils, though, and his rage is all the worse for being impossible to express. Rabastan wants to scream—  
He feels a muscle in his shoulder twitch, almost as if the fly's cousins are climbing around on his scapula, and dislodges it with an awkward jerk. His tendons burn.  
Across the room, the fly dies, dropping unceremoniously down the wall and vanishing against the dark molding.  
_Did I do that?_  
Rabastan raises his head a few centimeters, feeling his muscles creak and stretch as he does so. He doesn't see his wand anywhere, even when he makes a special effort to check his hand. The wall isn't _clean_, _per se_, but it shows no sign of recent magical damage. _I knew it. I couldn't have done anything like that. Not me, no. Besides, I'm seventeen. Only little _children_ use magic and don't know they're doing it. No, it's just a coincidence, and I'm deluding myself into thinking that I have any power whatsoever in this world_—

He hears the _thump_ this time, and an icy feeling floods his lower body (the first indication today that he still has one). The yelling continues, and if he strains, he can make out words. Of course he tries:  
"Out of the way! We have a seriously injured man here—"  
"—a very serious situation! I ask for your complete cooperation and that you remain calm _and absolutely silent!_"  
More running, more yelling. Someone thunders past Rabastan's room, making the door quiver on its hinges. Straining heroically, Rabastan manages to pull the meager blanket up over his shoulders, and though its pilled and loose threads grate across his sensitive skin, it provides some kind of barrier from whatever might be coming in. To kill him, of course.  
_Obviously_, St. Mungo's has been attacked by Death Eaters.  
If he hides his head—especially because he'd, at the moment, quite like to—he's a coward. If he closes his eyes and waits until it's all over, he's a Last Man, a moron, blindly self-deceiving, as if he hasn't read any Nietzsche, Voynich, or Schopenhauer (though he _hated_ Schopenhauer: the poor man was only ever a stupid, deluded Muggle, who, moreover, never had much to do with Rabastan's arguments, instead being blindly tossed in to give the veneer of intelligence), and he doesn't deserve the name of wizard. So he waits for something to happen, and, in the meantime, he trembles and strains so hard to sit up that his back bends and some blood comes oozing out of his mouth.

"Are you in here, love?" says a voice; Rabastan recognizes the dulcet tones of one of the Healers, an unassumingly maternal woman in charge of giving the uncooperative young man his hourly potions. She pushes open the door and pretends to beam, though he sees through it instantly; _what is she hiding from me? No one smiles like that! (Well, except Rodolphus…)_ "Oh, good, you are…"  
"I'm not going anywhere, am I? Look at me!"  
Healer What's-her-name bobs over to the bed, carrying a tray stacked high with vials and interesting twisty things. She carefully locks the door with her wand before setting the tray down on the nightstand, by Rabastan's glasses, and peeling his hand off his calf. "Yes, love," she says placidly, rolling up her sleeves and picking up an empty bottle. "I hate to do this, love, but it's all for the best, and we have to know—"  
Rabastan jerks his hand away, his upper arm protesting all the while. "Don't touch me!" But it's too late, the damage has already been done, and a few drops of his blood are resting neatly at the bottom of the bottle. The Healer gives him a bovine look of sadness, passing her wand over his fingertip and closing the cut instantly. Not that it stops Rabastan from complaining. "You're _mad_, you could have killed me—look, I have _blood_ on my finger! _Blood_! Merlin's beard, woman, I'll have your license revoked—"  
The Healer gently dabs Rabastan's finger with a piece of damp gauze, and his indignation shrivels up. She's so _motherly_. Shouting at her isn't the same as shouting at Bellatrix, or at Barty or Regulus; she's like Rodolphus, apparently. She stonewalls, and he feels embarrassed for trying. "What's going on out there?" he demands, a tad halfheartedly. He needs _something_ to complain about.  
"Everything will be fine," she murmurs, and ruffles his limp hair.  
"I heard shouting! Shouting! No, you can't tell _me_ everything will be just fine and dandy—"  
Healer Something unscrews the lid of one of the potion flasks, dribbling the contents into a spoon. Rabastan watches them bubble with a wary eye. She pats his shoulder. "Go on, love, drink it all, there's a good boy. There you go." She waits patiently until he tilts his head back, gulping for air, and his throat twitches slightly as the potion runs down his gullet. "Now, there's been a bit of a…a disturbance out there in the world, and a few of our good Aurors have been hurt in the line of duty, but it's all going to be just fine, you wait and see, and—"

Rabastan chokes, and blue spittle flecked with blood runs down his lips. Pain shoots through his chest, and he feels rather as if the sudden coughing fit sent a rib out of alignment and straight into his lung. "It was the Death Eaters, wasn't it?!" he demands, and the faux-interrobang says it all, really. Even though he's just had the potion, it takes a bit of an effort to hold on to sanity, thanks to his hardy Lestrange genes. _Oh, God, yes, the House of Lestrange, Death Eaters all—when they weren't gallivanting with Grindelwald or Slytherin_…_well_, he reminds himself conscientiously, _Slytherin was a right-thinking man. And Grindelwald wasn't so bad. But the Death Eaters are reckless, they're terrorists, and they're going to doom the purebloods by even existing—people like Rodolphus and Bellatrix!  
DAMN them!_  
Unusually for Rabastan, he shows almost no external signs of this horrible revelation. There are only so many facial tics to spare. His eyes twitch. What's-her-face nods, filling another spoon. "As I hear it, they attacked Algernon Garvenbach while he was eating supper with his family, and…and, well…" She looks away. "It didn't go too well for him," she says finally. "Poor man."  
"Algernon Garvenbach?" Rabastan fairly screams. "_THE_ Algernon Garvenbach?" He winces at the cracked sound of his own voice._ Of course it's _the_ Algernon Garvenbach! There's another one, is there? No! I'm so, so stupid, and I should have said, I should have told someone while I could, but I didn't, and..._His train of thought abruptly hits a brick wall. He tries to swallow dramatically, but his muscles aren't quite up to the challenge. _And who was harmed, really? Garvenbach? Some kids? What did _kids _ever do for me that I should be sad for them?_  
He grapples with the questions in silence as the Healer adds a few dabs of something yellow and fizzy to the spoonful of potion. Philosophy—even Rabastan's untrained brand of philosophy, born from his somewhat random education—is a rather effective distraction from what, exactly, she's about to put in his mouth.  
Rabastan tosses back the concoction, and doesn't feel up to gagging. It _does_ taste of piss. What a price to pay for temporary lucidity (or the appearance of same, anyway; it tends to fall apart when closely examined).  
"So Garvenbach is dead?"  
The Healer makes a creditable effort to look busy. "I don't think so…" She trails off, and covers the moment by fiddling with something shiny and unidentifiable. "Look, love," she tries, "it's over. I'd get some sleep if I was you."  
"I'll try that, yes, _shall _I," snaps Rabastan, "and hope I wake up tomorrow—"  
"You do that, dear."  
He watches her until she's out the door. In his empire of elitism, shit, and terror, people like her (whatever her crimes were) will _go first._

Barty (though perhaps not Regulus) will be interested to hear what Rabastan has to say on this momentous occasion. Whatever Barty has to say (and Barty _will_ have something to say, and plenty of "something" to go around), Rabastan will listen, and they'll both be glad that _someone_ else thinks the country's going to the dogs.  
_And it's all down to the Death Eaters,_ thinks Rabastan, staring up at the ceiling once more and listening vaguely for any helpful shouts of "Garvenbach's dead!" _They're hurting the pureblood cause, no, no one wants to listen to a bunch of terrorists…it's just insurrection, that's all—nothing substantive. It won't last. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named isn't enacting any real political change. All he's really doing is scaring people, and people don't like to be scared. If they think you'll kill your children, they'll go with you, oh, yes, but will they _stay _with you? Will they _believe? _They will not. Civilized dissent, that's the only way to make sure our opinions are still heard around here…_ (It might be appropriate for me to remind you, in the face of Rabastan's thoughtful and unbiased conclusions, that purebloods and bigots are, as far as politicians are concerned, the only people _with_ any opinions.) _The Dark Lord isn't having any of that. He can't look to the future.  
(I bet he's _never _read any Voynich!)_ Remember Voynich, Wizarding philosopher extraordinaire. He will be popping up again.  
_And lunatics like Rodolphus and Bellatrix eat it up, of course. _

An image pops into his head. Rodolphus is in it, savage, menacing, almost overwhelmingly…good-looking…and as huge as he is from poor Rabastan's perspective. There are Muggles in his imagination, too, if we assume that the thick, soupy splatters on the walls were at one time (not very long ago) Muggles. Rodolphus is standing over Rabastan's hospital bed, smoking a cigarette and leering without knowing what he's grinning about, and Rabastan feels, almost simultaneously, two conflicting urges. He wants to run, screaming his lungs out, and never look back at this man he trusted with so _much_. Rodolphus's eyes are fixed on the headboard, and his pupils are fully open even in the cozy light. _I know how you got those scars, don't I?_ Rabastan tells him. _Bellatrix, my arse! Some Auror did that!_ No doubt he has the Dark Mark on his arm—and as soon as Rabastan thinks it, there it is. Rodolphus's sleeve is rolled up, and the brand is exactly where it was on Bellatrix. Rabastan rather thinks he'll be sick (though it doesn't happen).  
But he's deceiving himself. Rabastan keeps looking. Occasionally, he has a few nasty little thoughts that make him wince with humiliation, and he counters them with images of himself in pain. This helps initially; however, all too quickly the pain gets mixed up into those treacherous fantasies and produces things that he never wanted to feel—and already has, of course.  
This, I suppose, is where I should start squawking, sounding most starchy and utterly didactic, about the defilement of innocence and the loss of childhood.  
But Rabastan is a Lestrange. Eventual defilement is all that can ever really be expected of him.  
Rodolphus, dear Rodolphus, what have you _done_ to the boy who loves you and trusts you even when he knows that he really shouldn't? (It will only end in tears.) Must you break every pretty thing—Bellatrix, Agatha—that comes into your filthy, leering sight? Must you lust after tragic beauty, knowing all the time that you'll eventually tarnish it with your own unworthy caresses? Of course! It isn't tragic if the butterfly lives to fly away!  
Rodolphus knew all along (perhaps), and he let her do it (possibly), and Rabastan went mad (undeniably). And perhaps Rabastan wouldn't have cried himself to sleep so many, many times had Rodolphus put a stop to it. Perhaps Rabastan might never have fallen in love, or lust, or Stockholm syndrome, with a man so blatantly unsuitable.  
He is quite handsome. I suppose that that justifies everything. Rabastan stares in the present tense, his gaze twitching over Rodolphus's smirk and his deadened eyes, and he hurts without quite knowing why. (This has been your daily dose of pathetic whining.)  
Look at me, making moral judgments! It seems that dear Rabastan has gotten me to sympathize with his unfortunate plight! And we can't have that.  
_Rodolphus_, he thinks, _you really are a bastard._ Words will be had when he gets home…in a decade or two. _And you'll…you'll…_He picks over his brain, and comes up empty-handed. _You'll damn well be sorry, _he adds as an afterthought.  
_Where was I? Oh, yes—the Death Eaters. Terrorists, all of them, powerless to start a _real _revolution, which they no doubt wouldn't know what to do with _if they had one. _Merlin, _someone _has to do something. The Death Eaters are a _disgrace_ to the pureblood cause. It is—or it should be—all for the greater good, as Grindelwald said…_  
He trails off mentally. It is beginning to occur to him that _he_ is that "someone".  
Several seconds later, Rabastan Virgil Lestrange has a bad idea. Even Barty would rightly dismiss it as pointless, machismo-fueled suicide.

We have a new rule, boys and girls: if our young friend Barty would laugh an idea off without considering it for a second, said idea is best thought of as a rather painful and quick route to eternal damnation.

* * *

We'll skip the next few minutes. Nothing interesting happens until Rabastan has an opportunity to kick the glacially slow plot back into motion—what, you expected _literature_? Great Art is out there. There's absolutely no doubt about it. The Western Canon is available to you, free of charge, in your local library…what's that? You're still reading? Obviously, you slept through your English classes and you deserve whatever you get. Academia is _important_; if only you had paid attention in school, you wouldn't be here. And here you are, lapping up the horrific tale of Voldemort and his toadying cocksuckers and being mocked by a self-righteous twit who, obviously, has the poor taste to continue telling you _just_ a little less than everything you want to know.

Self-deprecation is a lost art. I don't aim to revive it. I aim to remind humanity why it was not so much _lost_ as _thrown out_.

* * *

"I'm afraid I can't do that," says Healer "Obstinate," _in medias res_.  
Rabastan's facial muscles twitch feebly. He gives the Healer an extremely nasty look. If he could manage it on his own, he would even sit up. "Five minutes! You can't spare five minutes for me? I need to talk to him—no, you _don't_ need to know why—it's important—and you're too _busy._ It's because I'm a pathetic wretch, I suppose? Is that it?"  
"Sir," says the Healer, "an unauthorized use of the hospital owls, for a nonessential purpose, at a time like this, is more than my job's worth. I can't and I won't."  
Rabastan has another idea. It's only slightly better, and just as dangerous. "Aren't you a Parkinson?" he asks, eyes narrowing as he scrutinizes the man's face. Yes, _there's_ the upturned nose, and the famous squint.  
Healer Parkinson rolls his eyes. "I don't see why it matters, but yes—"  
"Wonderful," chirps Rabastan, forcing a smile. "Smashing," he adds as an afterthought (it might be a bit much). "I think my brother Rodolphus might have mentioned you once—Rodolphus Lestrange, you know? I suppose you probably know who he is? Lots of people do."  
The very next thing you know, Regulus and Barty will be name-dropping Rabastan himself: "I know a bloke whose brother knows a bloke who's Lord Voldemort."

Speaking of Regulus and Barty:  
"That would be 12 Grimmauld Place and 10 Carthier Boulevard?"  
"Correct!" Rabastan croaks lightly. It's amazing how fast Healer Parkinson acquiesced when Rodolphus's name came up, and how quickly the blood drained out of his face; almost like magic, really.  
The Healer nods. "Well, I'll see what I can do." He leans over and flicks a strand of hair out of Rabastan's eyes. "This had better not come back to bite me."  
Rabastan attempts a reassuring smile. Something watery and reddish is trickling from the corner of his left eye.

And he waits.  
It would be a lie to say that nothing is happening, and besides, Rabastan knows all too well that it isn't entirely true. More accurately, nothing is happening to _him._ The yelling outside slows to a throbbing buzz, too loud to ignore and too quiet to make out, and his muscles spasm to its beat. Pain goes, just slowly enough to make its progress hard to trace, up and down his body; it turns cold and squeezes his ribcage, rolling across his muscles and making him twitch where he still can. Breathing becomes, almost imperceptibly at first, a lot harder. His legs tingle, and he wants to get up and investigate the noises outside, just to for something to do.  
Where _are_ they?  
_Of course they've forgotten me. I never really thought that they would come, did I? I should _hope _not! Oh, I don't blame them…I'd do the same thing, if it were me. Who cares about poor Rabastan? They abandoned me here to rot, and why, it's perfectly justified, isn't it?  
But still. _He rehearses things to say to them if and when (and it will _definitely_ be when, not if; poor clingy Rabastan can't _really_ countenance the thought that, just once, he might be right about how much everyone hates him) they turn up. _Where the hell were you?_ Too prosaic; also a bit crude. We have Rodolphus to say those things. The universe doesn't need another foulmouthed Philistine. (It doesn't even need _one_…except, of course, for yours truly. Shit, bitch, fuck, hell.) _Nice of you to turn up._ No, that one's sarcastic or overly passive, depending on the delivery. Altogether too much like Rabastan himself. _I'm sorry to bother you._ Too apologetic. What if Regulus and Barty don't realize that they're being insulted? It might even imply that it's Rabastan's fault for being…well…Rabastan. Which, of course, it is.  
Perhaps he'll just go with "Where the hell were you?" after all.  
Rabastan stares at the wall, twitching occasionally. Everything hurts.

* * *

"Where the _hell_ were you?" pops out of his mouth, exactly as he planned, as soon as the door moves the tiniest fraction of a centimeter.  
_And here I was, thinking that, perhaps, I could come up with something better. But I couldn't, could I? Barty and Regulus are going to think I'm stupid_.  
The door opens all the way, and Barty darts inside, closing it as soon as the hem of his cloak slides around the corner. Regulus apparently will not be gracing us with his presence.  
Rabastan smiles, and though the tired look in his eyes doesn't lift, they brighten a little all the same: at least _one_ of them is here! Barty glowers.  
"Do you realize how _late_ it is?"  
"Yes, I…What's that? Come here—oh, you're wet…" Barty's blond hair is plastered to his scalp, and his robes are heavy and go _squish_ when he walks. Rabastan raises an eyebrow. "It's raining?"  
"Yes. I flew here." Barty wrings out his cloak, splattering water across the floorboards and saving St. Mungo's from washing them for another year. "All the way. In the rain, Rabastan, and in the middle of the night. If this is anything less than an emergency—"  
Rabastan's eyes soften, and he beams in monochrome. "Thanks, lad," he whispers. Something stings. Tears (just as bloody as they were the last time Barty was here) dribble over his cheekbones. "So I have friends, hm? Even someone like me—I can have friends. That's pathetic…"  
"It is." Yes, indeed.

"Where's Regulus?" asks Rabastan a minute later, grimacing as a damp, official-looking piece of parchment is scraped, none too kindly, across his stained face. "…that hurts…" he adds in a faint whisper, screwing up his eyes as Barty dabs just underneath them. It's parchment, not paper (that really _ought to_ go without saying, and I'm a tad annoyed that I have to state such an obvious fact), so of course it doesn't do very much good, but Barty feels a bit less guilty for trying, which gives him license to be annoyed. Still, he doesn't react immediately:  
"Regulus? He was coming?"  
"He was _supposed _to come. Though it's not his fault that he didn't, of course. I suppose he has more important things to do…well, Barty, I wouldn't want to _make_ him. I'm not that sort. It's perfectly fine with me, yes, if Regulus doesn't care to turn up—"  
"—in the middle of the night. In pouring rain," Barty says under his breath, wiping the parchment off and stuffing it back into his pocket.  
"I didn't know it was raining, Barty. If I had, perhaps I wouldn't have…but it _is_ important…"  
"Right. It's _important._" He takes his hand away and cocks his head, inspecting Rabastan's temple. "You called me out here for a reason?"

Rabastan nods softly, his damp skin shimmering and making Barty a little ill. "I need you to help me."  
"There's a surprise." Rabastan shrinks back, whimpering, and hints of red begin to bubble up around his clammy eyelids. "What do you want me to do?" Barty asks more gently, though it might be out of self-defense (mopping up Rabastan's face _once_ is bad enough).  
"I'm going home."  
Barty's face does something reflexive and unpleasant. His eyelid flickers. "You aren't! You can't possibly be—"  
"It's my decision, Barty. Please don't…yes, you're right…" he mumbles. "I'm a sick masochist." (No, dear, that would be Rodolphus.) "But what else is there for me?"  
Barty looks away. Swallows hard and nods. "All right. You're just going to waltz out of here. Fine. Can you walk?"  
"My dear Barty," says Rabastan, almost laughing with the absurdity of it all, "if I could, would you be here?"

* * *

No, the phrase "my dear Barty" isn't intended to imply any kind of romantic relationship. Get your filthy minds out of the gutter. There's nothing here to see, so move along…

Of _course_ it's romantic! Predatory, too.

There's something very wrong with Rabastan. Why don't you ask Bellatrix why? Or rather, don't. She'll do _it_ to you too. And that's heinous.

* * *

Barty is certain that he's saved Rabastan before. He can't remember precisely when these circumstances might have occurred, but he _knows_ that he's lived through them.  
This is a common psychological phenomenon, generally known as _deja vu_ (that is, "seen already"). However, feel free to interpret it as another sign of Barty's impending madness. Who can really disprove your theories, no matter how unlikely they may be? For all you know, Barty and Rabastan's relationship could be an obvious (therefore, it's your own damn fault if you miss it) metaphor for the French Revolution. If it is, no one's informed _me._  
Clearly, you'll have to read it through this lens from now on.  
I suppose that Mr. Crouch, Senior, is Robespierre, then, if only because I can hardly expect poorly-educated, special little snowflakes to have heard of anyone else. In that case, allow me to designate Rodolphus and Bellatrix as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Perhaps they'll die.

Let's shift perspectives on the action for a moment. Imagine that we're standing in the hall of St. Mungo's, just outside Rabastan's room. The candles on the walls flicker as someone just down the hall rudely disrupts the air currents, and that someone's shadow, stretched to nightmarish proportions, flitters round a corner and projects itself on the wall in front of us. Another shadow follows, sliding against the first. We hear snippets of conversation, all of which are interesting and beyond my ability to reproduce:  
"—dittany—" says a man's voice, in between stretches of burbling.  
"—levels are dropping dangerously low," a woman puts in, perhaps answering him.  
"Burns," says another gloomily.  
The shadow play on the wall comes to an abrupt and bizarre conclusion as the door in front of us opens, slicing the shadows in half. A disheveled young boy with a gaunt, pallid face peeks out, the shadows dribbling across the warped contours of his skull. He cringes in the light, and fends off any dangers with the bag he clutches, which contains all his worldly possessions, and then darts back inside. Even though we're invisible and intangible, it's hard not to get the impression that he's seen us; but then, this is Rabastan. Perhaps he sees into other worlds after all. (He wouldn't appreciate being described as a "young boy," by the way, and would carefully and diplomatically remind us that he is, after all, seventeen. He might then go off to find Rodolphus and cry, or have hysterics, or else feebly ask that Rodolphus _do something_ about us, please, thank you, Roddy, I don't know what I'd do without you, and of _course_ I don't think that your wife is the Antichrist.)  
Rabastan clings to Barty like a frightened toddler as the two of them step out into the hallway. Coincidentally, the Healers round the corner just a few seconds later. What lovely conflict I've built!  
The Healers barely look up at first; why should they? Rabastan is just one of many, many patients. Yes, he's sickly, small, and strange-looking, but then, he's in the hospital.  
Then they notice Barty, and Rabastan, feeling their sudden gaze, glares defiantly even as he shivers. That proves to be a very bad move.  
Of course, they'll get out of it. The plot demands it.  
One of the Healers, a redheaded man with a flask of potion in his hand, stops dead. I'll summarize his mental processes for your benefit: _Visiting hours are over. What's that kid doing here? Oh, Merlin's beard, what if he's_—  
Some boys, when caught in a situation like this, have to suppress the urge to swear. Rabastan finds himself fighting to hold his mouth closed; he can feel strands of thought rising out of his mind, and they're easy to slip into, but he _must not say those things in public_. Word salad tends not to impress the authorities. He's normal, sane, psychologically healthy, perfectly normal, perfectly sane, et cetera, et cetera…he's perfectly stable enough to go home. Of course. And if he's stable and healthy, he can't say all of those nasty little things that don't...don't make very much sense sometimes.  
He twitches and trembles and stares up at the Healer, looking sulky and bitter, as if he already knows that he's been caught doing something Naughty.  
_Yes, we'll all burn, burn, and that's grand and lovely…grand and…why does it hurt? Why? I like that, though, it feels nice—but this is wrong, so wrong—no, stop, he'll find out and we'll be—what are you doing? God—no—it hurts—pretty boy, pretty boy, yes, we'll put you in and fuck you up and _you will bleed_._  
Feel free to interpret that any way you choose. Has he (kindly gasp as you read this) been abused, or is he a filthy little liar who deserves no more than our rightful and sneering scorn? Or does he just like to tell himself stories (and stories aren't a crime)? Who can say?  
"What are you doing?" asks the Healer abruptly, and Rabastan's hands fly to his chest. He clutches tightly at the cloak, pulling it around himself and hitching the wireless up underneath it, looking for all the world like a child with his security blanket. It isn't his cloak, and feels wrong, somehow, but he'll take anything to shield him from their inconvenient questions—  
He's being quite childish, of course. Security is of utmost importance immediately after a Death Eater attack. Rabastan, you selfish boy.  
"Nothing," Rabastan whispers, and as he says it, he hears the soft bubbling and the girlish breathiness and decides that he rather deserves to be caught after all. _Do something, Barty,_ he thinks desperately, and stops dead; _so I can't save myself? So I'm a helpless little pansy poof? __**Is that it?**_ "We—we're leaving," he says, and his voice is louder but, alas, still cracked and quavering. _Damn it._  
The Healer, nameless, desperately unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and shortchanged by me as much as by anyone, frowns.  
"Who gave you the authority to—"  
Barty's mind is working far more quickly than it has any right to. _Sod Rabastan, _he thinks, like an ordinary teenager, _whiny, pathetic Rabastan, expecting other people to solve his problems for him—in the middle of the night—  
And he expects me to play along—  
He thinks I can save him—  
And he's _right!

Barty's mind crackles with the speed of his thoughts. He rejects lie after lie, stumbling through a forest of alibis until he hits on one that _just might work_. And he follows it to its logical conclusion.  
"Barty Crouch wants to see him," he says in a rush, inventing wildly, "from the Ministry, mister, and I came all the way here, mister, to get him as a witness, mister—"  
The Healer's eyes narrow to slits. "A _witness_?"  
"Because of his family, mister," Barty gasps, adding a bit of wild-eyed mania to it as well (though _that's_ all too convincing), "the Lestranges, mister, and his gran—"  
Rabastan's strength fails, and he slides quietly onto the floor.  
"Prove it," says the Healer, and his compatriots murmur generically behind him.  
Rabastan goes cold. He imagines Barty's stunned face, and thinks, _Barty, damn it, why did you have to risk everything? Why couldn't you make up something _plausible?  
And yet Barty doesn't seem fazed at all. Rabastan, on the floor, hears a rustle of parchment and the coos of a bureaucrat confronted with an Official Document.  
_Barty, Barty, Barty. Where do you _get _these things, lad?_  
He pushes a lock of unkempt hair out of his eyes and crawls to his feet. The Healer gives him a suspicious look, and he smiles back as best he can. He can _feel_ the tics. That can't be good, can it?

* * *

They leave by broom.

Rabastan is none too pleased when he discovers this unfortunate little fact.  
"You have a choice," says Barty as Rabastan snivels and moans. He's chosen to leave from an alley behind St. Mungo's, and the echoing wails hurt his ears and make him long to slap the man he did, after all, choose to rescue. "You can fly home with me, or you can crawl on your hands and knees—"  
"—and catch cold."  
"You're quite right," Barty snaps, "you _are_ a coward."  
Rabastan cringes. _Yes, I know, Barty, but you aren't allowed to say that! You're supposed to sympathize_—I'm sure that you've heard this argument before, in one of many repulsive forms. Generally it's considered to be a sign that the one making the argument is, now and forever, irrevocably, with no take-backs, marking him or herself as a whiny little twat who wants a good kick in the pants. As such, it's slightly self-defeating.  
He hangs his head, staring at his bare feet—why are they bare? Didn't he have shoes at some point?  
The memories he trawls through are unpleasant (_why is she laughing? Why won't he help me?_), and he doesn't spend a lot of time there (_oh, Merlin, it hurts_), but he comes back with the conclusion that (_and yet he saved me_) Rodolphus (_damn him_) swooped him off to the hospital (_he picked me up as if I was nothing_) barefoot and pajama-clad.  
Damn it.  
It might well add to his general Ophelia air if he chooses to wander, gibbering (but only half-mad, really) and shivering, barefoot and disheveled, and ready to be ravished by some poor sod who will be in for a nasty shock, down the streets of London Town in the middle of the night.  
And, after all, he'll be with Barty. Barty is a clever boy, and he's quite good with a broomstick.  
And it's stopped raining…

He looks around for the second broom, thinking that perhaps he can learn to fly after all and blocking unpleasant memories of first year from his mind. Barty follows his gaze, looking puzzled, and Rabastan realizes that something is very, very wrong. The cold sweat on the back of his neck almost persuades him to look up to the sky and check for rain. And Barty sees his opportunity.

_Whoosh_! Up they go in a swirl of robes and a tangle of pale limbs and wild eyes and banshee wails.

Somewhere in London, not too far away, a little Muggle girl shrieks and runs for her mum.  
"I sawed a ghost!" howls Kathee Jenkins, brat extraordinaire, as she thunders out of her room. Halfway down the stairs, she trips over an expensive toy, guaranteed to improve brain development, and hurtles the rest of the way at a slightly faster clip. As the floor rises up to meet her, her screams slide through the Doppler Effect and out the other side. Her brain development is about to go to waste—  
We'll leave the scene _there_, thank you very much.

They zoom, poetically enough, past the moon. Perhaps they even cast shadows on the clouds.  
Rabastan can't weigh more than Barty's trunk. Thirty-six kilos? That's _nothing_! It's _so_ unlikely that they'll plunge to a horrible fate, in fact, that there's no reason for me to mention the fact at all, dear readers, aside from the sad fact that I am, as we have already established, a prick.

Rabastan doesn't quite understand the mechanics of it. What an idiot. He's such a promising young man, too. Well, he _was_, before Lucius and Bellatrix and even Lord Voldemort himself actually looked at the boy whom they thought (or rather, _assumed_) would change the world.  
Now Barty and Regulus are the saviors. How nice that there's a ready supply of innocent pureblood boys! Let's not think about what will happen when, inevitably, they run out!  
Where was I going with that paragraph?

The wind nibbles at Rabastan's face as he clings, shivering, to Barty.

There's quite a lot of sky underneath them, and if he falls, he might have a few minutes to reflect upon his plight.

Words flow out of his mouth. He'd like to catch them and drag them back where they belong, but they're too fast, and he can barely hear them even as they slide from his frozen tongue: "God, boy, you'll get us killed, and we'll fall, freezing our little arses off, and burn up as we hit the ground, like little shooting stars from hell, and that's wonderful, isn't it? Oh, yes. Damn it. And she will get us, lads, and she'll—who wouldn't want a woman like her?

I've read Nietzsche, you know.

He had a very dashing mustache, and I think he was a wizard, really."

He catches the occasional whiff of smoke, and it stays in his nostrils and makes him cough. He can taste it, sooty and bitter, even long after the wind clears out the back of his throat when he foolishly opens his mouth.  
They pass lighted squares and darkened alleys. The rooftops pave the way beneath them, overlapping like the scales of a massive fish, and Rabastan and Barty are riding the waves that crest and break over the body of that Leviathan, which will rise up to devour them at any moment—Rabastan struggles briefly for a conclusion to his metaphor, and concludes that it was a bad idea to begin with.

As soon as he's almost used to it, Barty shouts, "This is where you live, right?" and even if Rabastan could be sure of what he heard over the throbbing wind, he has absolutely no idea where he lives.

He lives in a castle in Scotland. He lives there with Spinks the silly elf and Rodolphus the still-handsome teenager. He lives there with his grandparents and the pretty pureblood girls from the village, whom he beats off with sticks. He does not live there with Bellatrix, because Rodolphus has never met Bellatrix, and no doubt dear Roddy wouldn't take a girl who wouldn't lift her wand to save him over loyal, intelligent, brave, debonair Rabastan even if he _had_ met such a girl. And he can bring back the dead, too.

He does not live in this house. Even as he points vaguely to the rooftop, and even as Barty drops out of the sky like an angel (an angel encountering a machine gun-wielding atheist) and alights cleanly on the balcony, helping the shaking Rabastan to his feet, and even as Rabastan vomits into the street like a drunk, clutching the railing for support and vowing that he will never be such a damn fool again, he does not recognize this house. This is not his house. He does not belong here.

And he came back!

"This is your last chance," says Barty, as the damp moonlight fractures into pieces on his forehead, sliced neatly to shreds by his flight-mussed hair, and Rabastan stares, "so tell me. Why are you doing this? You know it's mental."  
"Oh, it's _completely _mental," Rabastan whispers. "But here I am, lad, nonetheless."  
Barty gives him a disgusted look.  
"You're mad."

He steps neatly onto his broom and kicks off from the railing. Rabastan watches him go without a word, and, silently tapping the lock with his wand, slips inside.

He drags himself through the dark corridors, enduring the whispers of the portraits on the walls, and jumps at every creak and every sudden flicker. Every step is a bit harder; suddenly he feels very tired, very alone, and very, very scared.

Where the _hell_ is Rodolphus?

Let's learn a word today, boys and girls. Codependency. Co-de-pen-den-see. A situation in which a person such as the adored baby brother of a serial killer is demented enough to feel that he needs to feel needed by the crazed old sod. See: _cheap narrative trick._ My definition isn't particularly applicable, I fear, but you may get some points if you helpfully provide it on your English test. Perhaps you'll even be paid a visit by some very nice men! (Verree-niss-men. Charming fellows who just want to help you out, or so they (_ever _so kindly) assure you. See: _Evan Rosier and Edmund Wilkes, psychiatrists, the horrific thought of Rosier and Wilkes as psychiatrists._)

I'll spare you the ensuing panic attacks. They do get quite boring on the page, even when narrated by a charming old fuck such as myself.

And so here we are. He came back.

* * *

He decides to check up on Rodolphus and Bellatrix before he wanders off to bed. He will later curse himself for this and blame his own stupidity for everything that will happen to him. Didn't he _learn_ from his first go-round?  
Slowly, he pushes the door open. Stops. Nudges it another few inches. He thinks he hears a noise, and he drops the door, recoiling as if by doing so he can dispel whatever monster he's conjured up. And then he peeks around the door, because he's an idiot.  
Something lurches in the darkness, rearing up. Rabastan's chest seizes, and he longs for his medicinal potions. He's almost _due_ for another dose! What will he do? Something is sitting in his throat and blocking his breathing.  
To his vast relief, as his eyes adjust, he recognizes Bellatrix. She stands out, pale against the dark sheets that coil around her, and he watches her twitching movements with something like awe.  
Rodolphus? Oh, yes, Rodolphus. He's in there somewhere, too.  
Rabastan glares defiantly into the marital lair, refusing to make the first move. Bellatrix and Rodolphus stare back at him, wondering if his first move will be funny.

Both men half-expect Bellatrix to greet Rabastan with a syrupy sneer of, "Hello, little boy," but reality falls short of their expectations, and as she unfurls herself from Rodolphus's arms (and, incidentally, exposes quite a few things that none of you, readers mine, have seen since Mummy got fed up with nursing), she rasps, "So you've come to join us, have you, in our den of sin?"  
Rabastan could be wrong, but he's fairly sure that he doesn't remember saying that the Temporary Lestrange Townhouse was a den of sin. Then again, who is he to correct her? His eyes find her naked breasts, and he goggles and twitches and breaks into a sweat. He looks away, like a virgin.  
She clambers across the bed, wand suddenly in hand. To the disappointment of all those who longed for dramatic tension, she's smiling.  
Rabastan doesn't want her, does he?  
Well, that's perfectly fine with _her_.  
The world would be a much nicer place, and I say this on my behalf as well as hers, if fewer respectable gentlemen did.  
If you miss the heavy hints now, dear readers, I really will have to question your innocence. Are you eight years old, my dear sir, and sneaking this story away from your perverted big brother's mattress? Put it back. Get the _Playboy_s instead. The articles are much better.

Her hair dribbles over her collarbones as she moves in for the kill.  
Rabastan takes a step back. He takes another step back, and is not particularly shocked to discover that he's quite good at strategic retreats. _Damn it! Damn damn damn damn! She's going to—Merlin!_  
He means to say, in a final act of defiance, "You bitch," but "Please, Miss Bellatrix, don't—" comes slithering treacherously out of his mouth instead. Those tricky little "word" things.  
Bellatrix crawls into the light, never taking her eyes or her wand away from Rabastan. She smiles in a rather unpleasant way that suggests that she's been wanting to blow him into little pieces for a very long time.  
"Please don't?" she repeats, as if she didn't quite hear it and longs for him to say it again.

Meanwhile, Rodolphus feels the loss of her warm body next to his a little too deeply. Suddenly, his arms are around nothing at all, and his Bella slips so easily out of his grasp. She's an independent sort of lass. That's perfectly all right with Rodolphus, as long as she knows when to stop.  
He suspects that he may even feel worse than Rabastan looks.  
The light carves out little chunks of skin and bone along Rabastan's chest, and to Rodolphus's agonized eyes, his dear baby brother is not a pretty sight at all. Good God, is that a _liver_? Are those sores contagious?  
Rodolphus Dante Lestrange, concerned brother, loving husband, violently racist serial killer, needs another drink. Preferably a strong one. Served with a cigarette and a potion that tastes of piss, which, if he's lucky, will make the pain go away.  
Rodolphus, as previously established, does not understand medicine. He does not understand a great many things. He is rather scared of medicine. He is scared of almost nothing else. He is scared that Rabastan will die. He is not frightened by the prospect that Bellatrix will get it into her head to turn her wand upon either brother, because if all else fails, wands snap. So do fingers. So do necks. And Bellatrix will stay warm for a few minutes, pretty for a few days, and amazingly willing and pliant until Lucius and Rosier and Wilkes and the other bastards tear her from his loving hands.  
But Rodolphus can't find the energy to do it right now. "It" being defined as anything more stressful than lying, drained, in his warm bed and watching Bella do whatever she does.

Rabastan's eyes meet Rodolphus's, and he thinks, _You, Roddy, are evil._  
Please note the interesting juxtaposition of the condemnation and the pet name.  
He shakes his head, feeling the wand tucked beneath his chin, and takes another step away.  
"This wasn't how I wanted to arrive," he whimpers.  
"Pity," she says, without giving him any.  
He glances away from her and squinting, sees something that makes his stomach turn. His facial muscles tug against one another.  
"You're hurt, Roddy!"  
Behind her, Rodolphus mutters, "Fuck, yes." It isn't particularly cathartic, but it does confirm to all present that he's alive.  
All fear forgotten, Rabastan walks past Bellatrix with a perfunctory shudder. He hops into bed. Not that way, you pervert.  
"Is that blood?" he whispers, caressing Rodolphus's mutilated hand. "She did this to you, didn't she?"  
There are little smears of sticky gore on his fingers when he pulls them away. What a pleasant detail.  
Bellatrix, crouched, animal-like, on the edge of the bed, watches them. Her face is unreadable; perhaps that's all for the best. She sees the moment of intimacy without being invited to, or feeling obligated to, join in. Such a voyeur.  
"You think," she whispers, "that I don't know what you're doing?"  
Rodolphus glares at her dully. "Fuck off. Where's the elf? Get her. Tell her we need the damn bandages."  
_Incest!_ she thinks, and it isn't entirely clear even to her what holds her back from dealing with the problem with two swift _Avada Kedavra_s and Lucius's much-needed testimony in court.

She gets the bandages herself, and watches them unspool themselves and wrap around her shoulder, with a sense that they're the most beautiful things that she's ever seen. She flicks her wand again, and the loose end of the bandage tucks itself away. A gram or two of dittany might accelerate the healing process—but, then again, perhaps she won't.  
There's something nicely poetic about the thought of ripping out Crouch's throat while the wound that he gave her still pulses and stings. His blood will hit her mask, dribbling down onto her throat like warm rain, and his sharp black eyes will widen in fear and pain before they glaze over and go blank.  
Perhaps she'll share that thought with Rodolphus when he finishes with the boy. But who can really say? Possibly he never will lose his sick fascination with young Rabastan. Possibly—she stares—he'll break the boy into a million bloody pieces:  
_"I'm fucking Rabastan up," he said.  
Yes. You are, aren't you, Roddy?  
Or is it the other way around?_  
So much for familial love. So much for maternal instinct. Rabastan will shudder as the spell hits him, then go limp and lifeless in Rodolphus's arms. Rodolphus will stare, uncomprehending, and then snarl like a dog. He'll draw his own wand—no, perhaps he won't remember that it's there—and he'll attack her, roaring in pain and loss, eyes dark with fury, and he'll rip—tear—wound—and she'll have to kill him.  
Not that she's jealous.  
She does feel, however, that she's missed her opportunity to say something witty and biting. Silently, she hopes that he finds out that she burned his books.

* * *

Seven o' clock in the morning.

Even in July, there are rain clouds over London. Sheets of rainwater cascade down the windows of the front parlor, making them rattle and creak. No candles have been lit inside; the room is grey and dreary, while streaks of light dribble across the table before vanishing in a matter of seconds. If the weather is symbolic—and who knows? It might be—it represents the futility of anything that our "heroes" have hoped to achieve today.  
Rodolphus, unfazed, sips his coffee and flicks through the _Daily Prophet._ The worst of his crimes are pictured on the front in artistic black-and-white.

Bellatrix has very important things to do today, on this day of futility and despair, and she downs her breakfast in seconds, pausing only to glance at the front page of the newspaper.

Oh, what an ominous headline it is. Algernon Garvenbach is mentioned. So are "atrocities." The ante has been officially raised.

She can't help but smile. Rodolphus grins back, and the effect is unnerving in the extreme: he looks ten.  
They share an adorable marital moment as he touches her hand. Hang onto this one. It'll be the last one that you'll get for a while.  
Rabastan scuttles in, truncating the moment considerably. Rodolphus looks up and awkwardly removes his hand, then returns to the newspaper; Bellatrix, of course, was just about to jinx him away anyway, and through her posture and expression she makes it quite plain that _that never happened_. At the very least, it didn't happen because of _her_. Rodolphus must have had her under the Imperius curse, the bastard.  
"Morning," growls the bastard.  
Rabastan nods awkwardly and sits down. He notices that Bellatrix has slung her traveling cloak across the back of her chair; he isn't entirely sure where she plans to go, but as long as it doesn't include him, he's perfectly satisfied.  
Bellatrix greets him with a curt nod as she gets to her feet.  
"You're going to the Ministry, right?" Rodolphus asks her, glancing up over the _Prophet_ once more. "With Lucius?"  
"He wouldn't change the plan, even to spite you," she spits, and, tossing the cloak over her shoulders, she leaves. The elf peers feebly around a sideboard and watches her go, shivering.  
"Bitch," says Rodolphus to the closed door. "Ah, well, can't be helped. Coffee?"  
"Thanks."  
Silence, punctuated at odd intervals by Rabastan's labored breathing. What more is there to say? "Sorry that I just, I suspect, drove your beloved wife out of the house? Sorry about possibly wrecking your marriage?" "Sorry about being an abusive drunk? Sorry about being the entirety of your tragic backstory?" "Sorry about not following in your footsteps, brother, and joining the Death Eaters at seventeen?"  
Actually, that last one has some potential. Rabastan, you sly dog, you're advancing the plot!  
"Where is she going?" asks Rabastan after a while. "Or do you not know?"  
"Government crap: what with last night and all. Ministry's bound to get suspicious."  
Rabastan considers this as he sips his coffee.  
"With Lucius Malfoy?"  
"Yeah."  
"I met him once," says Rabastan awkwardly. "I think that you must have been there." He dabs nervously at his lips with a napkin. "Pleasant man, actually, considering…"  
Rodolphus looks up briefly and laughs.  
"In comparison to the rest of our mates, right?"  
"No," says Rabastan, "I wasn't going to say that, Roddy." He leaves out the part about Rosier and Wilkes sending him into the throes of madness, or possibly an extremely inaccurately written bastardization of post-traumatic stress disorder. You silly narrator, mental illness doesn't work that way!  
"Damn good. _Damn_ good." He stares off into the distance; of course, the muscles that move his eyelids are strangely missing from his skull, and he can hardly avoid staring. Rabastan stares with him, hoping that Rodolphus can't see anything that he can't. His glasses _were_ current only a few summers ago. "If they're such nice men," Rodolphus says finally, "you want me to introduce you properly?"  
"No, really, Roddy, it's fine—maybe they're busy—"  
"Stubborn little fuck. Actually, I was going to see them today anyway. Might as well take you." Rabastan could swear that he's _smirking_. "Last time, I don't think they saw you at your best."  
Rabastan is not sure what to say to this.  
_Damn._  
_Pride will get me killed. Pride is arrogance and arrogance is a grave sin against—something—and I can't have such a thing. Not at all. Not someone like me, clever and witty and possibly the second coming of Merlin. Damn. No, not damn. Fuck. There we go. That's manly and nicely crude. I like it.  
Will "they" like it, I wonder?  
Who the hell are they?  
And they say I'm paranoid. Well, perhaps they're quite right._  
Rabastan hasn't earned his reputation for paranoia quite yet. Of course, his assumption that "they" say that he's paranoid when really, "they" don't exist, really says everything that we need to know.

* * *

**And there we have it. Originally, this chapter was going to include a lot more; however, I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that there's only so much that my loyal readers are willing to slog through. So actual plot will have to wait for next chapter, in which I remember that Avery exists.**

**Remember Avery? Neither did I. For four chapters, which works out to about six months.**

**If you, dear readers, review in great numbers, I might be able to churn out another chapter over the three days remaining in Winter Break. This works according to the following principles: Reviews make me happy. When I am depressed, a state that here refers to "being terminally unhappy," I mope about, play Minesweeper, and eat cookies. When I am eating cookies, I have something in my hands and, therefore, cannot type. If I cannot type, I cannot produce melodramatic fanfiction. However, if my melodramatic fanfiction garners me a large number of enthusiastic reviews, I begin to think that I may have actual talent. My ego sufficiently swelled, I can put down the cookies and type. If I think that I am an absolutely splendiferous special snowflake, I will not bother to edit what I write, because, after all, it must be absolutely **_**marvelous**_** if it is being written by Slytherite, the Special Snowflake. Therefore, though the overall quality of the update will go down, the word count will go up. In fact, the word count will rapidly rise into the stratosphere. If we accept Sturgeon's Law, which postulates that 90% of everything is utter crap, we can see that, with more fanfiction, there will be more fanfiction that is, amazingly, not crap. Perhaps this theoretical non-crappy fanfiction will even have Avery in it.**


End file.
